


I'd Let You Had I Known It

by whateverrrrwhatever



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Regency, Childhood Friends, Drinking, Historical Inaccuracy, Idiots in Love, Light Angst, M/M, Marriage of Convenience, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Romance, Smut, assumed infidelity, comedy of manners, jackson's a dick, no actual infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:48:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24581821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whateverrrrwhatever/pseuds/whateverrrrwhatever
Summary: Lord Derek Hale arrives in London determined to make a match, near-penniless and disgraced in the wake of an affair and the loss of both his family and his ancestral home. Mr. Stilinski, regrettably untitled but indisputably the wealthiest and most charming unattached bachelor of the London set, was only too willing to step in to marry his childhood crush.A story about falling in love and figuring it out, after the marriage plot is over.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 87
Kudos: 600





	1. Day to Night to Morning

**Author's Note:**

> This is a strange time to post fic. If you read this and you like it, or even if you don’t do either of those things, please consider checking out the resources here: [https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co](https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/#)
> 
> This fic is complete. I will be posting the second and third parts over the next week or two.
> 
> Title from “Say So” by Doja Cat.
> 
> Some warnings:
> 
> This is a Regency-like AU. A note about the Regency Era: it was a shitty time for people who weren't rich white men. The setting for this fic is best thought of as a Regency fantasy universe that ignores all the shitty stuff that was happening during this time (with the exception of weird Protestant sexual shame) for the sake of entertainment.
> 
> Accordingly, and also because I'm not that smart, this fic is rife with historical inaccuracies and handwaving.
> 
> There's a lot of drinking and bad decision-making in this fic. There's a lot of shame and weirdness around sex before marriage, though not around sexuality more broadly.
> 
> Last, but not least: this fic took six months to come together. It never would have without invaluable coaching, editing, tough love, and insight from [dottie_wan_kenobi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottie_wan_kenobi) and [bewarethesmirk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bewarethesmirk). Thank you both so much.

It was done: Mr. Stilinski had eschewed the reading of the Banns in favor of a Bishop’s license — “Why wait?” Stilinski had asked with a shrug; never mind that it cost ten shillings, never mind that Derek had none — and they’d stood before the altar in brand new ivory breeches, hands clasped, ignoring that there was only Boyd and Cora to stand on Derek’s side of the chapel. His intended had been thoughtful and discreet and only invited his most beloved family and friends, but still — the imbalance was plain.

“With this ring, I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow,” Derek had said, a warm flush rising under his neckcloth and gracing the tips of his ears as he slipped a plain gold band on his husband’s finger. “In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

A brief, chaste kiss in front of God and the clergyman and all their witnesses, and they were married.

++

The Hales had let the manor at Beacon Hill in Derek’s youth, taking up residence in the country for a month three summers in a row. The six of them — his parents, and sisters, and Peter — had taken up nearly the entire house and when their cousins joined them over midsummer, they doubled up in the bedrooms. There was always at least one child in the kitchen, or Peter, begging the cook for a snack; a shrieking game of tag on the sprawling lawn; a bevy of adults at leisure in the parlor, conversing or engaging in the endless, aimless pursuits of gentility.

Derek would walk to town with Laura and the older cousins to wander the bookshop and wait patiently for the girls to select a new ribbon or cherries or a feather for their bonnets, until they emerged to accompany him to the sweet shop. They could have taken the barouche, but the weather was so fine, and they had nothing better to do with their time than walk beside the country road that ran along the stream, laughing and bickering and gathering flowers. Cora would dip her fingers in the water to flick droplets at them, sending the party scattering, only to careen back together further down the path.

When it was too much for Derek to be surrounded by so many in the unrelenting heat of the high summer — the dim cool of the library interrupted by whining cousins and his own room no refuge from weather or company — or when Peter had been a particular ass, he would slip out across the lawn and through the hedge to pick his way across the stream to the wood beyond. Book tucked under his arm, he followed one of the deer paths to a shaded clearing, old craggy oaks towering over a large, flat rock. That was where he would read for hours in the shaded quiet of the wood, in the still of the summer afternoons, jacket and cravat shed and discarded on the rock beside him, sometimes savoring an apple or a bit of cheese pilfered from the sideboard.

That was where he first met Stiles.

++

Later, sitting across from his husband — his _husband_ — in their carriage on the way home from the reception, Derek thinks about it: the way Mr. Stilinski had looked up at Derek after signing their names to the register, a soft half-smile. The memory fills him with hope, for this new, fragile bond between them — that something true and strong could come from a strange and tragic circumstance. He feels that it possibly already has — this moment alone is more than he could have hoped for a year ago, still reeling from betrayal and loss, faced with an impossible and uncertain future.

“I had the baker deliver a second cake to the house. For us to enjoy later,” Stilinski says, startling him from his thoughts.

“What am I to call you?” Derek asks, turning to look at the man across from him. It’s not at all what he’d meant to say, but it’s been weighing on him nonetheless. “You’re not Mr. Stilinski anymore, and—”

“Two Lords Hale does complicate things, to be sure,” his husband says wryly, shrugging, one corner of his mouth turned up and eyebrows raised. “I will still be addressed by my family name. You, though, used to call me Stiles, when we were younger. You can again, you know. We are married, after all.”

Derek nods deliberately, meeting Stiles’s gaze. “If that’s what you would prefer.”

“I would,” Stiles says. He turns back to the window, sighing, and Derek wonders for a moment if he’s said something wrong. They’re only a few streets away from the house, passing the newly-built townhomes on the way to the one that is now his — their — own, and turning onto the square, where the oaks are adorned in deep red, leaves barely beginning their tumble to the lawn below.

Derek allows himself an unhurried look at his husband: his smart, clinging navy cutaway and fine embroidered waistcoat, commissioned for the occasion; the long proud line of his jaw above his perpetually slumping collar. 

As the silence drags on, Derek finds himself at a loss. Stiles makes no attempt to engage him in conversation, and Derek is preoccupied by what’s to come next and uncertain of what he should do or say.

Courting Stiles had been easy. There was no question of what to do or how to behave. They were surrounded by society during the unrelenting march of social events that comprised the London season, in the company of a string of bored and unyielding chaperones at midsummer house parties, or at an appropriate distance during dinner parties hosted by a series of indulgent mutual acquaintances. 

Derek found comfort in the familiar trappings of ritual, each a declaration of intent: calling cards; strolling along the promenade in the park; a handsome nosegay delivered by Issac, disgruntled by both the sentiment and the early hour. Then, finally: an offer from Stiles on bended knee, formal and gracious in the drawing-room at Boyd’s country manor.

Courtship had done little to prepare him for what might come next: an uncharted territory, married life, and Derek without a map.

To enter into a union under such diminished circumstances, for Derek’ name alone, had been humiliating. Stiles had been the only redeeming aspect of the situation — and because of him, the idea that began as a tiny spark at their meeting had grown, tentative as a guttering candle, throughout their courtship. That maybe, in losing all that came before, Derek might have that which he had never thought could be his: a love match.

At the house, though, Stiles retires to his study, and Derek is guided to the library, where he sits and fails to read the volume on orchard cultivation that had engrossed him not two nights before, counting down the days to his marriage at Vernon Boyd’s residence. He can’t focus on the delicate art of grafting citrus budwood with everything else on his mind — the sharp edge of Stiles’s jawline, the perpetually unkempt lock of hair brushed over his forehead, the way his hands had felt in Derek’s as they’d stood before the church that morning: how solid, how deft, how warm. Derek looks up at the clock. It’s four in the afternoon — not long until dinner, and retiring to the study, and then: to bed, and the foregone conclusion of their wedding vows.

Derek has already given Stiles the ring and is acutely aware he has no worldly goods to share, which leaves — well.

He dwells on the thought through dinner, a very fine roast accompanied by a tureen of fragrant soup and goblets of exquisite claret, which he can barely bring himself to touch.

“Are you too warm?” Stiles asks him. “You look flushed.”

“No,” Derek says too quickly. “I’m fine.” He drinks the rest of his wine — perhaps too quickly — to have something so he doesn’t have to look at Stiles. A servant silently comes forward to refill his glass.

They retire to the sitting room together, and Derek plays while Stiles reads, eyes assiduously on the keys of the pianoforte, avoiding the clock over the mantle. He can’t focus, distracted by Stiles’s wrists and fingers, by his silhouette limned by firelight. Following a particularly egregious attempt at Mozart, he gives up in favor of failing to read Don Quixote as the fire burns low beside them.

They walk up the stairs together, Derek’s heart pounding so loud he’s sure Stiles must be able to hear it, even as he continues to remark on the pleasant day, the late hour, the fine cake. The steps barely creak under their feet, and the thick carpet muffles their footsteps.

“Well,” Stiles says at the top of the stairs. The moonlight is pouring through the window, casting a shadow on Stiles’s features, on his lips. Derek swallows. It’s like a scene from the novels he used to steal from Laura and read by a single guttering candle after everyone else had gone to sleep, he thinks, as Stiles reaches for his hands, takes them in his own—

“Good night,” Stiles says with a small, tight smile, and squeezes Derek’s hands in his, letting them drop as he turns and retreats down the hall. Derek watches him go, unable to think of what to say to bring him back.

And just so, he finds himself standing alone in the upstairs corridor of this unfamiliar home on his wedding night. Derek stays in the hallway long after the door to Stiles’s room has shut before adjourning to his own suite opposite Stiles’s to retire and prepare for bed.

It’s evident that no effort or expense has been spared to appoint the room with his comfort in mind. There’s a fire banked in the grate, and the room smells sweet and smoky, like cherrywood. Derek finds his trousseau already carefully placed in the wardrobe alongside a gleaming new pair of Hessians and a caped greatcoat of the finest black wool. A new linen nightshirt is already laid out on the bed, diaphanous and pale beside the heavy velvet bed curtains. 

Derek undresses alone — Isaac, his valet, already dismissed in Derek’s foolish anticipation of the need for privacy — and slips between the softest sheets he’s ever touched, exhausted, ignoring the leaden misery in his throat.

Even then, it takes him too long to realize that Stiles won’t be knocking on his door, and even longer to fall asleep, thinking how distant this reality is from the match he had been raised to make. 

He wakes the next morning to Isaac opening his curtains, filling the room with the soft, diffuse light of a foggy morning. It’s not quite pea soup outside, but not far off, and the buildings across the way are shrouded with mist.

“Must you?” Derek groans, shoving his face further into the pillows. The night before, he hadn’t had a chance to inspect the room, and he looks around as Isaac helps him dress. The room is tastefully appointed — a lush beautifully patterned wool rug is set beside the bed, a small, well-stocked writing desk just below the window overlooking the street, and an impressive landscape of a oak forest rendered in oil and mounted above the mantelpiece.

He looks at the painting as Issac fusses with his cravat, warmth rekindling in his chest, the tiniest flame in the beating heart of him at the familiar sight, the slightest evidence of Stiles’s regard. He must have misunderstood, last night. Stiles must have been so tired, weary from the journey, or thought that Derek had been, and been far too polite and thoughtful to presume —

“Am I to breakfast with my husband?” he asks, warming to the thought.

“Mr. Stilinski— er, the new Lord Hale has already departed,” Isaac reports. 

And just like that, Derek’s brief moment of buoyant expectation is extinguished.

++

Derek had arrived in London at the beginning of the season past in a pristine, tasteful new wardrobe (on which he’d spent his last guinea) and his threadbare dignity. Everything else — his home, his fortune, his _family_ — had been lost to the fire, and his uncle fled to the Americas after playing through the meager remainder at the gaming tables.

He was resolved to ignore the vile whispers of his scandalous involvement with the late Lady Katherine Argent and to catch the attention, and ultimately the suit, of any eligible heir — young, handsome, kind, or otherwise — whose good name and fortune would rehabilitate his own sufficient to offer Cora the comfort and opportunity to make an advantageous, happy match of her own.

Mr. Stilinski, regrettably untitled but indisputably the wealthiest and most charming unattached bachelor of the London set, was willing to oblige.

Derek remembers standing with Boyd beside the orchestra at the Martins’ grandiose ball in March, nursing a cup of punch, and looking up to catch a glimpse of Stiles — Mr. Stilinksi, he’d had to correct himself — across the room. Stiles had been smiling, bright-eyed, leaning toward his companion and watching the dancers whirl through a cotillion. Derek almost hadn’t recognized him, and stared a second too long, unable to pinpoint the familiarity in the tilt of his head, his sweeping gestures, his rakish posture.

In the shock of recognition, he nearly upended his drink, only saved from an earthly demise by quick reflexes and an even quicker recovery. Boyd, alarmed, halted his rumination on the stuffed pheasant adorning MIss Tate’s puce silk top hat mid-complaint.

“Are you quite all right, Hale?”

“I’m fine. I thought I might have seen — it doesn’t matter,” Derek said. “Do you, by any chance, know the gentleman across the room in the blue jacket? Next to Miss Martin?”

Boyd discreetly surveyed the crowd. “With McCall? I do — that’s Mr. Stilinski, recently returned from his grand tour of the continent. A gentleman he is not, but quite eligible nonetheless. Though he’s a bit… odd.”

“Odd?”

“Unusual. His grandfather was in trade, and though his mother was from an old family, she died when he was young. He’s a gentleman, of course, but not one of us,” Boyd replied, but Derek’s attention was drawn away: at that moment, Stiles had turned, gaze meeting Derek’s from across the room. Stiles’s lips had twitched into the barest hint of recognition, and he’d turned to his companion before heading toward them. Boyd glanced over at Derek, surprised.

“You’re acquainted?”

“Once. We were neighbors for a time in our youth. But it’s been several years now. I can hardly imagine he remembers me,” Derek said faintly.

Stiles approached, and as the crowd thinned between them, Derek could see clearly his fine silk breeches, cut fashionably close, an embroidered white waistcoat under his black cutaway jacket — every article the height of fashion and composed of the finest material. The overall effect was one of the highest refinement, and as Stiles drew nearer, Derek suddenly could think of him _only_ as Mr. Stilinski — the boy he knew wholly replaced by the man before him: composed, well-appointed, an astonishingly handsome stranger.

“Lord Hale.” Mr. Stilinski had bowed low, rising with a kind, cordial smile. His gaze, though, had lingered on Derek for far longer than politeness could possibly account for. How crowded the ballroom had suddenly felt, how overwarm, how uncomfortable and airless Derek’s cravat. “How surprising, and fortuitous, to find you here.”

++

The first week and a half of Derek’s life as a married man proceeds much the same as the first day had. Stiles rises and is gone before Derek wakes, though he knows not at what time. Once, he’d enlisted Isaac to rouse him at barely six o’clock on Thursday to be told Stiles was still abed. He’d broken his fast alone and retired to the parlor to await his husband, only to doze off after rising at so early an hour to find he had missed Stiles’s conspicuously avoidant exit. 

Derek dines alone every morning and nearly every night and goes to bed alone, too.

Finally, on the second Tuesday, Derek gives up on his fruitless watch and accepts Boyd’s invitation to join him at the club for lunch.

“How is married life?” Boyd asks. Derek sighs. Sometimes he wishes Boyd weren’t quite so observant.

“Delightful,” Derek mutters darkly, and drains his glass, signaling to the attendant for another.

“I see.” Boyd settles further into his chair, eyebrows raised. The club is unusually quiet and they can speak without fear of being overheard by anyone other than the overstuffed divans and potted ferns.

“It’s perhaps not as I’d imagined it to be,” Derek amends, immediately and frustratingly contrite. Who is he to complain about his situation? Warm, clothed, fed, with a kind husband besides, if not the devoted and attentive partner he’d hoped. It’s already far more than he could have endeavored to expect, after everything.

“If you need to discuss it with someone,” Boyd offers, lifting his glass to the lamplight.

“Thank you,” Derek says. “But there’s nothing to divulge.”

Boyd sighs and drains the last of the whiskey in his glass. “Stilinski makes no secret of his… proclivities when he is in his cups. Which happens far too often for everyone else’s comfort. It’s quite vulgar.”

“He what?” Derek asks, palms suddenly sweaty, stomach jolting. How is it that everyone seems to know what pleases his husband but him?

“Vernon!” 

The call from across the room breaks his train of thought. Derek frowns, vexed by the interruption and the unknown interloper’s distastefully smug expression both.

Boyd sighs quietly. “Whittemore. This is my friend—“

“You must be Lord Hale.” Whittemore smirks, wide and unfriendly. “They say Stilinski couldn’t wait to wed you.” He steps back, drags an appreciative, lingering gaze over Derek from head to toe. “I understand now.”

“Jackson, behave.” Another young man, at least as handsome as Whittemore and apparently far better mannered, appears at his shoulder. He grins at Boyd and nods at Derek. “Boyd, good to see you again. Please forgive the interruption. You must introduce me.”

“Danny, Lord Hale. Hale, might I introduce Mr. Mahealani. He and Lord Whittemore have recently returned from a rather extended grand tour of the continent.”

“A pleasure,” Mahealani says kindly, shaking Derek’s hand. “Please do forgive my companion. He’s unbearably rude. I’ve become quite inured to it and forget how terrible he can be.”

“But Danny — haven’t you heard?” Whittemore sneers. “Lord Hale is recently wed to none other than Mr. Stilinski.”

“Oh, you’re Stiles’s—” Lord Mahealani seems surprised, but quickly covers his discomposure with a gracious smile. “My sincerest wishes for your happiness. Both of your happiness.”

Something about Mahealani’s evident surprise, quickly masked, or the too-familiar way he says Stiles’s name, makes Derek sit up straight in his chair, clutch his glass more tightly. A sensation he can’t quite name twists in his chest.

“Danny, didn’t we see Stilinski at the tables last night, well into his cups? And the night before?” Whittemore grabs the back of Derek’s chair and leans in close enough that Derek can smell the wine on his breath, feel it hot and damp on his ear. “Not as easy to please as Lady Argent? Though she tired of you quickly, didn’t she? Or is it that Stilinski can’t hold your attention?”

“Jackson,” Mahealani hisses, stepping forward. “That’s quite enough.”

“I’m only making an observation,” Whittemore continues, undaunted by Mahealani’s admonishment. His lazy tone belies his tight grip on the chair, the tense line of his arm, the sneer flaring his nostrils. Derek holds himself very still, careful not to betray Stiles with his reactions, not to make a scene of himself, a further disgrace. “I’m hardly the first to notice, and I must confess I’d be surprised to learn I’m the first to comment. After all, it’s not the first time you’ve been the talk of the _ton_ , hm? I simply can’t imagine the shock it must have been for the heir of the Hale estate, warming Lady Argent’s bed, to find himself penniless and married to _Stilinski_ , of all the pitiful—”

“Sir,” Derek slams his palms flat on the table, pushing his chair back. “You go too far—”

“Whittemore,” Boyd says firmly, cutting through their quarrel, a warning bell. “I think you are quite finished here. Do try to refrain from insulting someone with a less forgiving temperament. It would be a damn shame to see features as delicate as yours come to harm.”

“You’d do well to heed his advice, Whittemore. These gentlemen have been more than patient with your insolence, and have proven worthy of the name. I wish I could say the same for you. You’ve no need to court their dislike further.” 

Mahealani draws Whittemore away from Derek and a narrowly averted duel, and though Whittemore shrugs Mahealani’s hand away, he steps back and straightens his waistcoat and jacket in turn.

“Since you insist, Danny.” Whittemore doesn’t take his eyes off Derek. “Hale’s not worth a second more of my time, regardless.” He turns on his heel and stalks toward the staircase, and with an uncomfortable, circumspect bow, Mahealani heads after him.

Derek ignores Whittemore — an utterly useless ass, according to Boyd, with more money than sense — and instead watches Mahealani, dignified and handsome even in his apologetic frustration. He can see what Stiles must have been drawn to: his patience, his broad shoulders, his strong jaw. Derek knows the other things, too: the Mahealanis are well-established in society, wealthy, titled. An impossible match for Stiles, though clearly not beyond his reach for a more discreet connection. 

The thought roils Derek’s gut — or perhaps it’s the whiskey souring in his empty stomach.

Derek knows his title, ancestry, and his family’s reputation afford Stiles opportunities that would otherwise be beyond the reach of an untitled gentleman, even one as wealthy as Stiles. He’s new money, and Derek’s old — some of the oldest, before it all burned to the ground. And he knows he’s lucky that Stiles deigned to him an offer, that he has this life, and he knows he should be content — grateful, even, given his narrow brush with penury — but he can’t help but look at Stiles and want more.

“Ass,” Boyd mutters into his glass and drinks down the last of his whiskey with a sigh. “Another, Hale?”

Derek looks at his half-empty glass and makes a great effort not to appear morose. “Please.”

++

Stiles is already at the house when Derek returns from the club. He’s still feeling tipsy as Isaac helps him with his greatcoat and informs him that his husband will expect him for dinner. The thought alone sobers Derek, and he hastens to his room to pass the scant hour writing to Cora and dressing carefully for dinner.

“How was your afternoon at the club?” Stiles asks him over pheasant and sauce, sprouts, and carrots. Derek twists his napkin in his lap and ignores the subtle errors in Stiles’s manners — the way he eats a little too quickly, leans his elbow on the table.

“It was alright,” Derek says, carefully slicing into an evasive carrot. “Boyd joined me for the afternoon, so at the very least the company was enjoyable.”

Stiles nods, forcefully stabbing at a sprout, furrowing his brow in concentration as his fork slips and clatters against his plate. “The two of you are quite close.”

“He is my oldest friend. I don’t know what I would have done without him, after… everything. I owe him a debt of gratitude beyond repayment.” 

“I understand,” Stiles says, uncommonly focused on the remnants of his pheasant. “And I am — I am happy you have such a close companion in him. I would never wish to interfere with your, ah, friendship, in any way.”

A footman breaks away from the wall to clear Stiles’s plate and offer more claret. Derek looks down at his own plate in silence, blue and orange flowers entwined along the edge. This setting is new, commissioned in celebration of their nuptials, the Hale arms and Stilinski crest merged into one and hand painted on the center of each piece. Derek’s is obscured by a puddle of gravy.

“I did make the acquaintance of Lord Mahealani and Lord Whittemore this afternoon,” he offers into the lull.

“Mahealani? He’s quite all right.” Stiles perks up a little too enthusiastically for Derek’s preference. “But Whittemore....”

“He seems to take no small pleasure in reminding others of their misfortune,” Derek says dryly.

Stiles sits up sharply, grabbing Derek’s arm so quickly he can’t help but startle. “Did he say something to you?”

Stiles leans forward in his chair, countenance stern, firelight reflected in his eyes. His fingers easily span Derek’s wrist, gentle but firm, and Derek can feel his cheeks heat at the attention. “Nothing consequential. Nothing I haven’t heard from others.”

“Hell and the devil,” Stiles swears, squeezing Derek’s wrist once, hard, before letting go. He leans back in his chair, glaring up at the chandelier, and Derek feels bereft. “Whittemore is a liar and a scoundrel and a thorn in my side, and I should have dueled him when I had the chance. He invites it every time he opens his fool mouth. And he’s a hopeless shot, the cad—”

“Stiles,” Derek interrupts, measured and calm. “I will not have you dueling on my behalf. If Whittemore needs correction it is for me to decide, and that correction mine to give.”

“You mistake me,” Stiles counters. He’s turned his body toward Derek and leans closer, almost out of his chair. “I do not doubt you can handle yourself — or Whittemore, for that matter — easily. He is beneath you. He does not deserve to have your name on his lips.”

Derek hardly knows how to respond. Stiles _must_ know how foolishly and shamefully Derek has behaved. Everyone knows. Whittemore made that much clear, and Stiles is no exception. It almost defies belief, that Stiles could think so highly of him after everything he’s destroyed: his home and family, his reputation, his future. 

Finally, he manages to speak. “Stiles, I am grateful—”

“No,” Stiles interrupts feelingly, shaking his head. “No. I am your husband now, and no matter how I feel about it, you owe me nothing. Do you understand? Nothing. I do not want your gratitude.”

Derek realizes, suddenly, that Stiles has hold of his wrist once more, eyes fixed on Derek’s. His napkin and glass have been abandoned on the table, his chair and body turned away from the meal and leaning toward Derek, so close their knees nearly touch — so close that anyone walking in would think they’d interrupted a moment between lovers. Derek licks his lips at the thought, and he hears Stiles’s breath catch in his throat. “Derek…” 

He’s as close as Whittemore had been in the club, Derek thinks, but that’s where the similarities end. He could count Stiles’s eyelashes, this close, could lean forward, just a bit, and their lips might brush in the barest kiss. The thought sends a jolt through his body, like the shock of an electrical charge burning through his skeleton, and he can’t help sucking a quick breath, barely a gasp, but the sound is enough to clear the static from the air, set Stiles jerking away.

“Forgive me,” Stiles says breathlessly, standing so quickly he nearly upends his chair. “I know better than to presume that you would—” Stiles flushes and looks over at the grandfather clock, gaining a measure of composure. “Though it is unbearably rude of me to leave the table early, I have urgent business to attend to this evening, and I’m afraid I lost track of the hour.”

“I—” Derek starts, but Stiles is already bowing, clutching the back of his chair now sat between them like a protective shield, and hurrying out of the room.

He stares at the door, bewildered, but Stiles does not return. Derek tries not to flush under the servants’ curious and pitying scrutiny, and fails when he thinks again of Stiles leaning toward him, close enough to kiss.

++

He’s surprised to find Stiles taking his breakfast in the sitting room the next morning, spreading jam on a bun and letting his tea cool as he leafs through the daily paper. He’s dressed in shirtsleeves and wrapped in a loose blue silk banyan. It makes a handsome contrast with his warm eyes and the soft pink of his mouth.

“Good morning,” Derek says, averting his eyes from Stiles’s bare wrists and turning to collect his own breakfast from the sideboard.

“‘Morning,” Stiles greets him, glancing up briefly from his papers in barely perfunctory acknowledgement. Derek tries not to bristle at the pointed lack of regard.

He busies himself with fixing a plate, pouring a cup of tea, and settling at the table. A pair of letters sit folded on a silver tray beside his place setting — one is stamped with Boyd’s familiar seal, and the other with dark green wax and an elaborate _M_. Derek slices it open to find an appropriately humiliated apology from Lord Mahealani and an extended olive branch in the form of an invitation to lunch together at the club.

Across the table, Stiles turns the page, shaking out the paper, and clears his throat. “Anything of particular interest?”

Derek looks up to find Stiles staring at him expectantly, one eyebrow arched, one ankle perched on a knee. 

“It’s from Mahealani,” Derek explains. “In apology for Whittemore’s behavior yesterday.”

“Hmm,” Stiles says. “I thought I recognized Danny’s mark. An apology is the very least he could offer for continuing to tow Jackson around town in his wake.”

“He also invited me to dine with him at the club,” Derek says.

Stiles quickly schools his expression, but for a moment, it had flickered into something Derek couldn’t begin to understand. “Oh? And were you planning to accept his offer?”

“As kind as Lord Mahealani is, I’m uninterested in a close friendship with anyone who makes such close acquaintance with one as unpleasant as Whittemore,” Derek says, eyebrows pulling together in a scowl. It’s half the truth. He’s no more interested in pursuing a friendship with someone who, by all appearances, had been a particular favorite of his own husband.

“A wise choice.” Stiles smiles at Derek, paper forgotten, and a slow warmth unfurls in Derek’s chest. He looks down at the table, at Stiles’s hand resting on the cloth. He might — he _could_ — reach for his tea, and in returning the bone china cup to the saucer, rest his hand beside Stiles’s. Then it would be nothing to reach just a little farther, to brush their fingers together, a gentle intimacy. Or maybe Stiles would move his hand to rest on Derek’s—

“Do you, ah,” Stiles says quietly, nervously tapping a finger on the table, jolting Derek from his thoughts. He’s staring into the fire across the room rather than meeting Derek’s eyes. “Do you have any engagements this evening?”

“No,” Derek says quickly, shaking his head. “None. Or, I intend to call on Vernon Boyd this evening. But I had planned to dine at home.”

“Right. Boyd.” Stiles nods, tapping his finger on the table one last time. He sits up, straightening his banyan, and reaches for the paper, an about-face from his quiet, warm demeanor not moments before, leaving Derek unbalanced. “Well, then. Don’t worry about dining here. I’ll — I plan to dine at the club this evening. No need to wait up.”

“Are you certain?” Derek asks. “I can give Boyd my regrets—”

“That won’t be necessary.” Stiles reassures him, but doesn’t look away from his paper. “I do hope you enjoy your evening together. I’m glad you have found such a loyal and agreeable companion. I am grateful for your discretion.”

“I—” Derek starts to say, but the moment has already passed, and Derek has no notion of how to return to it — to Stiles’s pleased smile, his — inquiry? Invitation? Derek doesn’t know. Now, Stiles is back to his paper, looking determinedly away, and Derek is left swirling the dregs of his tea, wondering if the leaves will give him some insight into what it is that his husband wants.

++

In the weeks that follow, they fall into a sort of routine. Stiles is often home in the mornings to breakfast with Derek, but leaves — to conduct business, to call upon his friends and acquaintances, to lunch at the club — shortly thereafter. He has investments and holdings to attend to, deals to make, connections to maintain, and is often out for the afternoon, and dinner, and well past. Derek doubts Stiles has any business beyond gaming and getting utterly foxed that takes him into the wee hours of the morning. Derek dines alone, with only his books and his darker thoughts to keep him company.

At loose ends with Cora still in the country and Boyd his only London connection, Derek tries to busy himself with the household affairs. Unfortunately, Stiles’s household is exceptionally well-run; what few improvements Derek dares to suggest are accepted and ultimately ignored by the highly competent and admirably patient housekeeper. Satisfied that his further involvement in the matter is both unwelcome and unwarranted, Derek regresses to old behaviors.

The library is at the back of the house, a handsome oak-paneled room out of the way of visitors and the household staff alike. Derek spent hours perusing Stiles’s collection — impressive and broad, a good mix of classical literature and more modern offerings. Well-worn childhood adventure books are alongside travel diaries, mixed with Hobbes and Locke and Mills, Cervantes and Shakespeare, but it’s the collection stowed in the alcove below the window seat that catches Derek’s attention. He wouldn’t have thought Stiles a lover of poetry, but there he finds volume after volume. The Milton is untouched, and the Divine Comedy, but others have cracked spines and dog-eared pages, and it’s one of those that Derek chooses to read for a long rainy afternoon on the divan.

The book lasts him through dinner, taken alone, and after, he settles in with a rather frivolous novel. Stiles comes home late, in from the freezing cold night into the parlor, deep in his cups and starting in surprise to find Derek still awake and sprawled in front of the fire. He sheds his greatcoat and chucks it on one of the overstuffed armchairs. Derek almost protests, knowing Stiles’s valet will find it in the morning, and become apoplectic. He’s prone to dramatics, and considers every mistreatment of Stiles’s clothing a personal affront. He is very frequently affronted.

Stiles moves to unbutton his jacket, and Derek doesn’t breathe a word.

“Blast, but it’s warm in here,” Stiles huffs, shrugging the tight sleeves from his arms, unbuttoning his waistcoat. He yanks at the knot on his neckcloth, the morning’s work of twenty minutes ruined in seconds, fabric falling away to reveal the gentle curve of his throat.

Derek freezes, blinking, novel dangling precariously in his suddenly loose grip. The nape of his neck heats as Stiles fumbles with the buttons of his shirt, sighing with relief when they give way, falling open to reveal a glimpse of collarbone, the barest definition of his Stiles’s muscular shoulder. 

His breath catches in his throat, a quiet gasp, and Stiles looks up from fiddling with his cuffs to meet Derek’s gaze. Derek knows he’s too obvious, that it’s all laid bare: the blush he can feel in his cheeks, the way he can’t keep his eyes from Stiles’s parted rosy lips. He can’t help it — Stiles is perfectly rumpled _en_ _deshabille_ , hair mussed, a fine sheen of sweat brightening his skin, catching the firelight as he disrobes.

“Oh, I—” Stiles scrambles to button his shirt, faster than Derek can protest. “Forgive me. I’ve made you uncomfortable.”

“No! No, it is my—”

“How stupid of me,” Stiles cuts him off, agitated, crookedly fastening his waistcoat. “This is — unforgivable, really, I — my deepest apologies, Lord Hale. I in no way meant to presume that you would be comfortable... I am accustomed to living alone and returning to an empty home in the evening. I forgot myself. I may also have had a little — rather, quite a bit too much to drink.” He snatches his cravat from the back of the armchair. “I beg your pardon, dear husband, and bid you a most regretful good night.” Stiles executes a brief and very unbalanced perfunctory bow and ducks back through the door.

“Stiles, I—” Derek calls, rising in pursuit, but Stiles is already halfway up the staircase, clutching the banister like a lifeline as he drags himself toward bed. Derek watches him go, regretful indeed, knowing there is nothing to be gained by way of explanation, not at this hour and in this state, and not when Derek doesn’t know if he would be able to ask for what he wants, even if he tried.

But Derek certainly knows what he wants. 

On his own, during the long afternoons when he doesn’t go to the club, when he tires of correspondence and reading, and has blundered through the arpeggios in Piano Sonata No.13 until the notes on the staff are meaningless, he thinks of what it might be like to be with Stiles. His frame of reference is narrow, comprised entirely of a summer’s gentle flirtation with a village girl, a treasured afternoon’s embrace with one of the young shepherds in the hayloft, and Lady Katherine. It all amounts to distressingly little, and far too much of it distressing, to set him at ease.

And Stiles. Stiles doesn’t have a _reputation_ , as such. What affairs he may have had — and Derek doesn’t doubt that he has; Isaac has alluded to a former attachment to Mr. Mahealani, though Derek is ignorant of its precise nature — have been discreet and appear to have ended amicably. But still, Boyd’s comments give him pause. Apparently a good number of the _ton_ are apprised of Stiles’s desires, whatever they may be. They remain frustratingly opaque to Derek.

What if they wanted the same thing? What if Stiles was to be his husband in more than name?

It’s too much to hope for, Derek is well aware, but he lets himself hope nonetheless: instead of turning away at the top of the stair, what if Stiles took his hands and drew him near? What if he brushed his fingers over Derek’s lips, palming the nape of his neck? From there, it would be easy for Derek to let himself be kissed, to be led down the hallway, to be pressed down onto the bed, and — he can barely let himself think of it. What Stiles might have looked like in the candlelight, shirt open and breeches forgotten on the floor, hair a wild tumble from Derek’s fingers running through it.

How it would have felt, to move under him, around him. What Stiles might have said: telling Derek how lucky he is, how good Derek feels, how beautiful he looks, spread open for Stiles, wanting. How it might have been, to be woken with a kiss, the morning fog outside the window and Stiles curled beside him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Please consider leaving a comment and/or checking out the links here: [https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/](https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/#)
> 
> Find me on twitter as [whateverrrrisay](https://twitter.com/whateverrrrisay) and on tumblr as [whateverrrrwhatever](https://whateverrrrwhatever.tumblr.com/).


	2. Keep with Me in the Moment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I mentioned this in the original note but this fic is the most self-indulgent comforting thing I've ever written. I really do hope you like it.
> 
> Warnings from the previous chapter apply. Apologies for any formatting errors - trying to get the text in the latter part of this chapter right was a task.
> 
> Finally, thank you again [dottie_wan_kenobi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottie_wan_kenobi) and [bewarethesmirk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bewarethesmirk) for invaluable and heroic beta work!

Despite Derek’s hesitation and embarrassment, things go back to normal, or whatever constitutes normal in this highly irregular situation, shortly thereafter. Stiles is red-cheeked and contrite the next morning, and ready with another apology that Derek dismisses, trying to convey how very welcome Stiles’s actions had been and desperately hoping Stiles will take his meaning. His failure is evident when Stiles shamefacedly thanks Derek for his inexhaustible patience with Stiles’s behavior and resolutely returns to the morning paper, inviting no further discussion.

Derek tries again, a different tactic this time. “Do you have any business to attend to this evening, or should I expect you home?”

“Tonight?” Stiles shakes his head distractedly, still focused on the paper. “No business, no.”

“Good,” Derek says. “There’s to be a performance of _La Traviata_ —”

“Oh, hell. Is it Saturday already?” Stiles cuts in, suddenly, looking up from the paper.

“It is,” Derek confirms cautiously.

“Then I am, in fact, already engaged for the evening.” Stiles sighs, avoiding Derek’s gaze, and reaches for his tea. Derek tries to keep the disappointment from his expression. “I shall have to beg your pardon once more. As it happens, I’m afraid I have some business to attend to this morning as well.”

“Right. Of course,” Derek mutters. He stirs his tea too vigorously, and it sloshes over the edge of the cup, puddling in the bone china saucer.

“I hope you have an enjoyable evening on your own. I won’t be back until late, so no need to wait up,” Stiles says breezily, folding the paper and setting it aside.

Stiles drains the last of his tea and takes his leave, but that doesn’t stop Derek from lingering in his dressing gown, desultory, well into the afternoon. Isaac comes to fetch him from the library and tells him under no uncertain terms that he must begin dressing if he hopes to have a prayer of making it to the theatre on time.

Cora, back in London and staying with the Reyes family rather than trouble her newlywed brother with the burden of attending to her social engagements, insisted on accompanying him to the opera that evening, along with Boyd and the young Miss Reyes, newly out for the season. He dallies further on their way out the door, holding on to hope that Stiles will walk back through it and accept Derek’s invitation to join them, but only succeeds in drawing Cora’s ire by causing them to arrive ten minutes late.

“If you want your husband to come to the opera with us,” she bites out, fixing him with an arch look. “Perhaps you ought to ask him directly.”

“He’s very busy,” Derek says.

“Too busy to make time for you?” Cora asks, raising an eyebrow. 

Derek doesn’t answer. 

It’s not until he’s in their box, settling in beside Cora while Boyd and Miss Reyes socialize in the hell pit of vague mutual acquaintances clustered in the lobby, that he sees Stiles in another box across the way, whispering in Miss Martin’s ear, serious and intent, his hand resting lightly on her arm. Her head is tilted toward his, lips quirked in a knowing smile, red curls tumbling over her shoulders. They’re alone, in a position as intimate as it is relaxed, suggesting a comfort and familiarity that makes Derek’s stomach twist. The feeling only worsens when Miss Martin turns to whisper back and Stiles bursts into easy, unfettered laughter, leaning to press his shoulder against hers.

It strikes Derek that his marriage may never grow to be the love match that he’d so briefly imagined — so ardently hoped — it could. Stiles knows about him, about his... _ruin_ , and doesn’t want him. He swallows heavily, the single glass of champagne souring in his empty stomach.

He’d been mistaken — he’d been _greedy_ — to think that his feelings could be reciprocated, that he could possibly be what Stiles desired in any fashion, beyond his name. And if he doesn’t want— if he doesn’t pursue Derek’s affections, if he seeks his pleasures elsewhere, what business is it of Derek’s, really? It’s not uncommon, he knows, to find love outside of marriage, especially when the union is so very clearly an arrangement of mutual utility, of business—

“Derek? Are you all right?” Cora’s hand is on his shoulder, and he can hear the concerned confusion in her voice, but he can’t tear his eyes away from the tableau across the theatre. “What’s the matter?”

He knows when she catches sight of Stiles — her fingers dig into his jacket, and she gasps. “Oh. Oh, Derek.”

“It’s nothing,” he says raspily, then swallows down the lump rising in his throat and tries again. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

Cora turns to him, her expression furious and dark. “Fine? That’s your husband cozying up to Miss Lydia Martin in a private box. It’s hardly—”

“I said it’s nothing,” he repeats, tone harsh and insistent. “I knew. It’s — I already knew.”

Cora’s face falls in dismay. “Derek—”

“If you’ll excuse me, I’m afraid I’m not well.” Derek stands, granting Cora the barest smile, and swiftly departs, ducking through the curtains and hurrying down the hall. He prays Cora won’t follow — he thinks she won’t, knowing Boyd and Miss Reyes are on their way — and avoids the lobby in his hasty exit. The footman judiciously asks him no questions as he calls up the barouche, for which Derek is absurdly grateful. He knows his clenched jaw, his tense carriage, the lump threatening his throat and the hot itch threatening his eyes are obvious — too obvious.

He goes home like that: sick to his stomach, tears threatening, gulping in air as the barouche races on. 

He must leave Stiles alone, stop hoping for more, stop thinking of his mouth and his fingers and how good the broad plane of his back would feel under Derek’s hands. He vows to stop remembering how Stiles licked cream from the corner of his lips during tea on Tuesday afternoon, and the golden summer day they’d lain on the grass side by side. 

Because, Derek thinks resolutely, whatever reasons Stiles had for courting him, for taking his hand in marriage, they’re not these.

++

Derek had been surprised, that first summer at Beacon Hill, to find the tranquility of the clearing and the hot summer afternoon interrupted by a young man — tall, a little too long in the limbs, a little too quick to speak out of turn. He wasn’t surprised after that — for any of the summer afternoons that year, or the next, or the next.

“You again,” Derek said from where he lay on the rock, sighing, dropping his arms and his volume of poetry along with them. Stilinski — Stiles, he had corrected Derek early in their acquaintance — lived in the estate down the road with his aging father, and had been the bane of Derek’s summer visits to the wood. And yet, he hadn’t stopped wandering away to the clearing, knowing Stiles might come around.

“Me,” Stiles agreed, flopping down beside Derek on the rock and reaching across him to pluck the book of poetry from its landing place, brushing their chests close. “Coleridge? Must you?”

“This, from a self-described man of taste. You’re infuriating. You wouldn’t know good poetry if it slapped you in the face.” 

Stiles rolled his eyes. “Ah, yes. I am a Philistine. I beg of you, please, teach me to appreciate refined verse, lest I spend the rest of my life reciting limericks in polite company.” He flipped through the pages, frowning. “Rather long-winded, isn’t he?”

“I defer to your expertise on the topic,” Derek said solemnly.

“Oh, shove off,” Stiles said, and then, through a fortuitous combination of surprise and the sudden strength he seemed to have developed since Derek had seen him the summer before, Stiles almost did shove Derek off the rock.

Derek caught himself at the edge of the rock with one arm and pushed back with the other, bracing himself against Stiles’s relentless assault. Gaining purchase with a foot flat on the rock, Derek heaved against Stiles, leveraging his precarious position to roll him onto his back. Derek planted a knee between Stiles’s thighs and grappled to still his arms as he fought back valiantly, their breathless laughter unfurling through the forest. Finally, Derek had Stiles in his grip, fingers wrapped tight around each forearm, and he shifted his weight forward, pinning him to the rock. Grinning, Derek looked down at Stiles beneath him, and—

He froze, laughter dying in his throat. Somehow, between one lazy summer and the next, Stiles had grown — always tall and long-limbed, he was now broad and muscled, too. His face was still the same — familiar, affectionate, fine-featured — but framed by a squared-off jaw and stronger brow. His hair had grown a little long and wild, brushing his collar at the back and fallen away from his forehead. He was still laughing, but quieter now — he had dimples, Derek noticed, and a mole just by the corner of his mouth — watching Derek look at him. Stiles abruptly sobered, gaze locked on Derek’s.

They stared at each other for a long moment, breathing heavily, alone in the clearing save for the rising buzz of the cicadas.

“Better luck next time,” Derek said, and let go, backing away and retrieving his book from where it had landed clear of the tussle, dragging it into his lap for safekeeping.

“Next summer,” Stiles promised, flinging an arm across his eyes, chest still heaving, waistcoat splayed open around him. His cheeks were pink, Derek noticed, from sun or exertion or — something beyond hope or expectation. “Next summer, I’ll get the best of you.”

The next year, Peter summered on the continent, and Laura caught Lord Morgan’s eye. The Hales stayed at their estate in Derbyshire, and that very same cursed summer, Derek met Lady Katherine Argent for the first time.

++

After the disastrous night at the opera, Stiles seems to realize that something is amiss and grants Derek a wide berth for several days — perhaps out of a desire to avoid confrontation, or a misplaced notion of privacy, Derek doesn’t know. Derek passes the time brooding in the library, lying on the thick red carpet, tracing the elaborate rosettes and staring at the ceiling, in so sour a mood that even Isaac won’t be called upon to interrupt him.

All things considered, it’s a surprise to find Stiles in the library at the end of the week, lounging on the divan, one foot flat on the upholstery, and the other trailing on the floor. He’s holding a slim volume of poetry curled over his head, frowning in concentration, but his expression eases when he turns to see Derek framed in the doorway.

“I thought I might find you here,” Stiles says, smiling a little as he pushes himself upright. A cut-glass tumbler rests on the carpet beside him, catching the light from the fire, holding a wilted slice of lime and the remains of a pour of gin. Stiles’s hair is falling across his forehead and he pushes it back as he looks up at Derek. “Nightcap?”

“I— please,” Derek manages. It’s strange to have spent days thinking Stiles is avoiding him, only to find him here, after all. Stiles retrieves his own glass from beside the divan and goes to refresh it at a tray on the sideboard, preparing a second for Derek.

Derek looks away from Stiles — in shirtsleeves, again, waistcoat tailored fashionably close to his body. His jacket lies discarded across the arm of the divan. Derek should be used to this. In the comfort and privacy of his own home, of course Stiles will be only as dressed as he pleases. Derek skirts the writing desk and several shelves on his path to the seating area by the fire, giving the sideboard a wide berth. He pauses at the divan and picks up Stiles’s book, examining the cover. “Wordsworth?”

“I’ve developed a partiality to poetry,” Stiles explains, handing Derek his glass and settling on the divan with his own. Stiles’s knee knocks against Derek’s leg and he swiftly retreats, tossing the book back onto the end of the chaise and claiming the matching armchair beside the fire.

“I can see that,” Derek says, gesturing to the alcove by the window. “I would have thought him a little liturgical for your taste.”

Stiles shrugs and leans back to rest on his elbows. “There’s a time and a place for everything, even Wordsworth. What would you suggest I read instead?” He glances at Derek, raising an eyebrow.

“Given that your education in verse has almost certainly been lacking,” Derek says, swirling the gin in his glass drolly as Stiles rolls his eyes and snorts, “best to begin with the Bard himself.”

“As you wish,” Stiles says mockingly, but he rises and makes his way to the window, returning with the Sonnets in hand. He presents it to Derek with a flourishing bow. “For you, oh husband mine.”

“I thought to make a recommendation for your own edification and betterment, not my own,” Derek says, setting his drink aside. The volume is slim, bound in green morocco, the cover embossed with gilt flora. Derek eases it open with a thumb and browses the pages.

“Oh but husband,” Stiles drawls, collapsing back onto the divan and fixing Derek with a triumphant, upside-down grin. Derek makes a concerted effort not to look at him. “Verse is meant to be read aloud, especially _this_ verse.”

Derek narrows his eyes. He knows he’s been led astray, but he’s uncertain how. Stiles has pushed himself up, the better to take another sip from his tumbler, and Derek frowns. “Very well. Any requests, or shall I make a selection?”

“Hmm. The 116th Sonnet, perhaps? As you know, I am rather a romantic.” He sighs theatrically, and Derek knows he’s been hoodwinked — what’s more, he knows he’s well and truly doomed. He swallows heavily and flips through the slim volume to the poem in question.

“If I must,” Derek says. In truth, he doesn’t need to look at the page. He could recite the words upon it from memory. Looking down, though, he ensures his eyes don’t wander disastrously to rest on Stiles, still draped over the divan. Derek clears his throat, willing his voice to stay steady, his hands to stay still, and begins.

_”Let me not to the marriage of true minds  
Admit impediments: love is not love  
Which alters when it alteration finds,  
Or bends with the remover to remove.  
Oh no! It is an ever-fixed mark  
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;  
It is the star to every wandering bark,  
Whose worth’s unknown although his height be taken.  
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks  
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;  
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,  
But bears it out even to the edge of doom._

_If this be error and upon me proved,  
I never write, nor no man ever loved.”_

Derek closes the book after he finishes, letting the final words settle over the room, silent save for the low hiss of the fire. He runs his fingers down the spine of the book, dragging his fingertips against the raised ridges of the binding.

“Well done,” Stiles says. He swallows loudly. He’s still sprawled over the furniture, one knee drawn up, glass resting on his chest as he stares at the ceiling, biting his lip. “It really is quite different read aloud, isn’t it?”

“Yes. It’s as you said. Verse is written to be spoken,” Derek says inanely, forcing himself to relax back into his chair, gripping the wooden arm in one hand and the book in the other.

“I suppose it’s my turn.” Stiles sighs overly loud and long. He reaches for the volume, and Derek gratefully passes it over, careful that their fingers don’t brush, wishing that they would. “Do you have a preference?”

“No.” Derek shakes his head. He takes a deep pull of his gin and doesn’t set it aside — it may be necessary to help him through the next five minutes.

“Then we shall let fate decide.” Stiles opens the book to the table of contents and closes his eyes, jabbing a finger to the page. He cracks an eye open and peers at the result. “And the 87th it shall be.”

“If you insist,” Derek allows. It sounds innocuous enough. After another gulp from his drink, he settles in to endure.

Stiles makes a great show of standing, clearing his throat and humming before he begins. “And so, my dear husband, we begin William Shakespeare’s Sonnet the 87th:

_Farewell — thou art too dear for my possessing,  
And like enough thou knowest thy estimate:  
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;  
My bonds in thee are all determinate.  
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?  
And for that riches where is my deserving?  
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,  
And so my patent back again is swerving.  
Thy self thou gavest, thy own worth then not knowing;  
Or me, to whom thou gavest it, else mistaking:  
So thy great gift, upon misprison growing,  
Comes home again on better judgement making._

_Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter:  
In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.”_

Derek doesn’t move a muscle. Stiles began his reading in a clear, pleasant voice, but had grown hoarse and faltered not halfway through. He finishes quietly, dwindling to almost a whisper. As exposed as he’d felt after his own sonnet, Derek now feels somehow worse.

“Quite the composition,” Stiles finally says mirthlessly, tossing the book on the floor beside the foot of the divan, as if he no longer wants anything to do with it. He collects the tumbler from its place at his feet and empties it in one long swallow. “Truly excellent. A portrait of the human condition.”

“As they say,” Derek agrees, watching Stiles scrub a hand through his hair, clearly agitated, taking halting half-steps across the plush carpet, as if he’s contemplating pacing, or launching himself back toward the sideboard for another drink.

“Right. I do think that’s enough poetry for tonight, don’t you?” Stiles says tightly, his expression unreadable. “I have correspondence awaiting my attention.”

He abruptly turns and strides toward the door, turning back at the threshold to look back at Derek. His hands are flexing at his sides, and he shifts his weight from one foot to the other. For a wild immoderately hopeful moment, Derek thinks he’s going to come back across the room and — do _something_ , finally, but— 

“Good night, Derek.” Stiles smiles, soft and almost sad. “Thank you, as always, for a lovely evening.”

Derek would beg to differ, but Stiles doesn’t wait for a response before absconding — doesn’t even bother to collect his poor crumpled jacket — and Derek’s not quite sure what he would have said to him, regardless.

++

Outside of those youthful summers, they’d barely even been alone together before their marriage: just the once, memorable for its rarity and sweetness, for how relaxed and happy Derek had been that afternoon, how it eclipsed everything that came before. Their chaperone had wandered off to the shade, and they lay on a blanket in the sun, fat bees buzzing through the clover just beyond their heads. Derek had smiled at Stiles, sun-warm and shy, and Stiles had looked back, rolling onto his stomach so his elbow just brushed Derek’s shoulder as he relayed their chaperone’s position and the movements of a gaggle of geese across the field.

He had felt at ease for the first time in years, in the comfort of familiar company and the innocent risk of a moment almost alone. It had been so simple a luxury to close his eyes and imagine he could feel the heat of Stiles’s skin against his own through their clothes, that Stiles might lean just a little further to bring his lips to Derek’s, sweet and uncomplicated, inspired by nothing more or less than the pleasure of the company and the summer’s heat and the desire for more.

In that instant, he’d been certain: he would have let Stiles kiss him, would have kissed him back, soft and unhurried, sticky-sweet like the slow afternoon, chaperone be damned. If — when, most likely — Stiles asked to marry him, he would say yes.

++

They receive a Wednesday invitation to tea at the McCalls’ on Friday, and two days later find themselves awaiting Lady McCall and her son Scott in a solarium, surrounded by orchids and ferns. It’s warm, and Stiles removes his jacket after only a minute or two. It would be scandalous except that the McCalls are family, except that he and Stiles are married. Derek averts his eyes anyway, glancing over the divan and armchairs upholstered in golden damask, the trays of cakes and sandwiches on the table between them. 

Stiles makes his way over to the spread in his shirtsleeves and dandyish pale blue brocade waistcoat, the one Derek hates, nipped in at the waist and easily the most indecent article of clothing in Stiles’s wardrobe. Derek turns away so he doesn’t stare and busies himself by wandering around, taking in the palms and vines, examining the impressive collection of sculpture — a bust of Artemis, Remus and Romulus rendered in a pair of statuettes. 

Derek steps around a ficus to find a large, ornate white cage in the corner, and the bright flash of a parrot landing on a perch near the cage’s open door. As he moves closer, Stiles comes up noisily beside him, plate in hand.

“Scott is fond of animals,” Stiles murmurs, slightly too close to Derek’s ear. His breath stirs Derek’s hair. “He rescued Imogen from a horribly neglectful owner after the man sought Scott’s advice when she fell ill. Now the hateful creature owns the place.”

Stiles breaks a morsel of tea cake from one among the precarious stack on his plate, offering it to the bird, and is rewarded with a snap of its beak — in an instant, the cake is gone, and bright red blood is welling up in a cut on Stiles’s finger.

“Blast,” Stiles hisses, bringing the cut to his mouth. “Every time.”

“You think you’d learn,” Mrs. McCall says, stepping through the French doors. He rises, and Stiles hastily follows suit, fumbling with his plate. “And mind your language, if you please. We have company.”

“Who? Lord Hale? You can’t mean my _husband_?”

Mrs. McCall ignores him. “Lord Hale,” she says kindly, offering her hand. “It’s so very good to see you again. I do hope you won’t take my son’s friendship with Mr. Stilinski as a testament to his character, or mine. I did attempt to raise him to have much finer manners than his friend.”

“Mrs. McCall.” Derek bows over her hand. “I’m afraid I must confess that familiarity and affection have blinded me to my husband’s less refined tendencies.” 

“Oh no. A lost cause already, I see.” They both ignore Stiles’s baseless protests.

“I’m afraid I am lost indeed,” Derek agrees archly. Mrs. McCall laughs, ignorant of the truth of his confession.

Stiles shifts uncomfortably, and mumbles at her to leave Derek be, but she brushes him off. “Oh, hush. Let me get to know the man who has swept you off your feet. I’m sure we’ll be fast friends.” She gestures toward the furniture beneath the potted palms. “Shall we?”

As they’re arranging themselves on the bamboo chaise and armchairs, Derek almost misses the look that passes between Stiles and Mrs. McCall — an arched eyebrow and gentle inclination of her chin met by the barest shake of Stiles’s head is all he is privy to before they’re interrupted by thundering footsteps in the hall. All three of them turn to regard Scott McCall, framed in the doorway, dressed far more formally than the occasion requires. Derek notes his slightly wilted cravat and wrinkled trousers as he bows and walks over to take the seat beside his mother.

“Please do forgive me,” he says, still catching his breath. “I’m afraid I lost track of time. Lord Hale,” he looks toward Derek, a welcoming and easy smile breaking across his features. “It’s good to see you again.”

“You lost track of time,” Mrs. McCall repeats, looking at him askance, teacup nestled and saucer nestled elegantly in her palm. “A frequent occurrence, these days. Visiting at Grafton Street again?”

McCall flushes, but remains silent despite the teasing from his mother, and Derek bites his tongue. He knows the address well, and knows too — thanks to Boyd, an unrepentant gossip — that the young Mr. McCall has eyes for none other than Miss Allison Argent. Though the thought makes him uneasy — never too far from the guilt of what happened to his family, and his role in his own ruin; Kate’s hands gripping his shoulders too tightly, as they embraced while his home burned — he and Chris Argent have reached a detente since his sister’s death in a disreputable London back alley, and via mutual unspoken agreement, stay far away from one another as possible in London’s very small social scene.

Derek is drawn from his thoughts by the lively conversation continuing around him, embarrassed to have been so distracted by the mere mention of a name, though it appears his companions have been ignorant to his absence, as Stiles joins in teasing his friend for the depths of his infatuation. McCall scoffs, indignant. 

“Because you claim to have never been so preoccupied,” he says, glaring at Stiles. “Because there was _never_ a time when your partiality for another drove you to distraction, to foolishness—”

“But sir,” Stiles interrupts, glaring, flushing to the tips of his ears and slipping easily into the clipped enunciation and excruciatingly polite diction of argument. “You mistake me. I claim no exception from the ridiculousness of the lovelorn. I know the state very intimately, indeed. It has been my most unwelcome companion these many years. If anything,” he laughs wryly, “I serve as a caution: do not let your sensibility overcome your reason when it comes to love.”

McCall shakes his head at Stiles, a curious expression crossing his face. “I know you’re concerned, but Miss Argent is an excellent match, and shows every sign of returning my affections. I would not be so reckless, otherwise.”

“You most certainly would,” Stiles counters, but he’s relaxed back into his chair, laughing a little. “And I don’t doubt that she does. Luckily for you.”

“If you’re quite finished,” Mrs. McCall says, rolling her eyes, “may we continue with our very sedate afternoon tea? Please help yourselves — the sandwiches are getting soggy.”

Chagrined, the two relent, and the conversation turns to less passionate topics. Sedate, though, the afternoon is not — it’s joyful, Derek realizes. Surrounded by the figures of his childhood, Stiles is at ease in a way Derek has rarely seen him.

The light in the solarium brings out the gold in Stiles’s eyes, brightens his hair, and he looks young. A lot more like the Stiles Derek remembers from his childhood.

Derek’s happy to see him this way, and with a pang of guilt, resolves to endeavor to make him this comfortable, this happy, more often. If he can’t have everything that he’d imagined and hoped for, well, this is very close to enough.

“I still can’t believe you are the very same Derek from summers in the country,” Mrs. McCall says, laughing, and Derek snaps to attention. “Here, in my own home.”

“Stiles used to talk about you all the time,” McCall offers. “We had started to believe you were a figment of his bored, lonely imagination, at loose ends while we summered in Bath. Derek in the woods. Derek by the stream. Derek coming out of the lake after—”

“I beg you, do not embarrass me further,” Stiles pleads, slapping a hand to his forehead. “Derek has heard quite enough already.”

“But I have not, husband. Not nearly,” Derek says, and nearly misses the way Stiles looks at him after, surprised and — something, Derek doesn’t know what, but it’s bare and honest. It sends a knife-edge through his chest and he knows all the wanting he’s been so desperately avoiding is obvious in his expression. He’s suddenly aware of their company, but Scott and Mrs. McCall pay no mind, distracted by their laughter and already on to the next tale of Stiles’s childhood misadventure.

“Thank you,” Stiles says to him in the carriage later, on their way home. It’s well past the lamp-lighting hour, but even in the dim and distant glow of the street lights, Derek can tell Stiles is smiling. He reaches for Derek’s hand and squeezes, briefly. “I hadn’t realized how long I had gone without visiting Melissa and Scott. It was good to have you there.”

“You’re welcome,” Derek says, and they lapse into a comfortable silence. 

He should say more, he thinks. Derek lost his whole family, but Stiles knows loss, too — his mother at an early age, and his father only a few years prior. The McCalls, less Rafael (away at the battlefront in Stiles’s youth, and then god knows where), had become his family in sentiment, if not in name. Derek is happy to see Stiles be himself in the way that’s only possible with those that know one most intimately. He likes this version of Stiles, relaxed and generous with his laughter. 

“They’re your family,” Derek says finally, too late — they’re pulling up to the house, and Stiles frowns at him, confused. “The McCalls.”

“Your family now, too,” Stiles says, and steps down from the carriage, offering his hand to Derek. Derek accepts, and steps out onto their doorstep, to home.

++

The visit to the McCalls does usher in an additional complication: Derek finds himself once again failing in his struggle to avoid thinking of what it would be like to be with Stiles as one would expect a husband to be. It’s impossible, he finds, to separate his growing feelings of intimate friendship and affection for Stiles from his intimate feelings of a very different sort.

For the past two weeks, Stiles has been at home far more than Derek has come to expect, and underfoot at every opportunity. When Derek rises for breakfast, Stiles is at the table, wrapped in that silly blue silk dressing gown that’s forever slipping off his shoulders, the material of his shirt maddeningly fine, buttoned to the neck and just shy of transparent. Derek has taken to memorizing the titles of the books in the parlor to occupy himself during breakfast so he doesn’t stare. He’s running out of shelves. 

As a result of this renewed temptation, and Stiles’s ubiquitous presence, Derek has found himself spending a lot more time with Boyd at the club.

Whittemore, of course, notices and cannot refrain from commenting. Early in the week, he approaches Derek and Boyd just as they claim their seats, set away from the bar and gaming tables, and well-appointed for quiet conversation. Boyd has just begun confessing his intended courtship of a Miss Erica Reyes when Whittemore interrupts. “What’s wrong, Hale? The bloom off the rose, as it were — and so soon?”

“You have a rather particular interest in my married life, Whittemore,” Derek says coolly. “What am I to make of your obsession?”

“Can’t a dear friend take an interest in your happiness? Perhaps I could offer you some advice to help keep your husband’s attention,” Whittemore sneers.

“And just how is Miss Martin?” Derek asks, taking a moment to thoughtfully examine the ceiling’s rosette before meeting Jackson’s glare. “I heard she rejected your proposal once again. The third time, was it?”

“Mind yourself, Hale,” Whittemore bites out. “Some of us haven’t forgotten exactly how you found yourself in this position. No amount of your husband’s new money will erase the memory of your… _indiscretion_ from good company.”

A hot, familiar surge of guilt wells up in Derek’s throat, but he swallows it down. He’s grown accustomed to the sensation. “My presence here would say otherwise, Mr. Whittemore. I recommend you raise your grievance to someone who gives half a shit. Seeing none here that do…” He inclines his head at Whittemore and turns away from his outraged expression in a shockingly abrupt dismissal. Whittemore stands there a moment longer, jaw working in fury, but seems to think the better of making a scene and storms away.

“Rather histrionic of him,” Boyd observes, swirling the drink in his glass. “Well spoken, Hale. That man truly is an unrelenting, unmitigated ass.”

Derek sighs, and takes a deep draught of his whiskey. Better Whittemore at the club than Stiles at home, taking tea together and talking through Stiles’s latest investment, making a pitiful attempt not to get caught staring at Stiles’s mouth, his wrists, his hands. Derek knows what to say to Whittemore, at least. To Stiles, he only knows that which he cannot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on twitter as [whateverrrrisay](https://twitter.com/whateverrrrisay) and on tumblr as [whateverrrrwhatever](https://whateverrrrwhatever.tumblr.com/).


	3. Why Don't You Say So?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter! Thank you all so much for reading.
> 
> Endless and incalculable thanks to [dottie_wan_kenobi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottie_wan_kenobi) and [bewarethesmirk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bewarethesmirk) for helping me get this story into readable condition.

It would be a lot easier to avoid getting caught staring, Derek thinks, assiduously looking away from where Stiles is engaged in a round of whist in the Martins’s parlor, if Stiles would ever close that damned mouth of his. Instead, he tries to concentrate on Boyd and Miss Reyes, deep in conversation at his elbow.

“Wouldn’t you agree,” Miss Reyes drawls, “that he’s quite overrated? Other than a superficial flare for the dramatic — which, while admirable, I find insufficient to distract from his defects — his poetry is utterly dull. I find it rather pedestrian, don’t you?”

Boyd nods, riveted. “Utter drivel. The rhyme scheme alone is odiously simplistic.”

Derek sighs quietly, desperate to avoid yet another conversation with Boyd regarding his distaste for modern poetry. He scans the room, and finds a number of familiar faces — Mahealani, Whittemore, Miss Martin herself, and Cora, in conversation with Jordan Parrish — a very appropriate young man, and not a bad match, all told, though to Derek’s familiar eye she appears very bored.

He’s distracted again by Stiles — this time by his laughter, as he reacts to one of his tablemates. Derek smiles a little, despite himself, and something tightens in his chest. His heart, he supposes, skipping a beat, the way it does when one is in love and the affection goes unreturned.

Stiles turns back to his cards, and Derek rolls his eyes at his disheveled state. Derek wears his collar points almost to the corners of his mouth, keeps them sharp and starched; meanwhile, Stiles’s began the evening crisp as ever but are now well on their way to a slouchy mess as dinnertime approaches. Stiles can’t stop fiddling with his cravat, can’t keep his hands off his face, runs his fingers along his chin contemplating his next trick. His valet, ever theatrical, despairs of Stiles’s endless fidgeting. Derek despairs, too, clutching his champagne flute and trying, abysmally, not to get caught staring. 

He knows this wanting is hopeless — Miss Martin’s there across from Stiles, radiant in a pale pink silk gauze gown and coral tiara, and Stiles keeps grinning at her, open and joyous, in a way he hasn’t regarded Derek since before they were married.

Derek makes his best effort to evade a descent into self-pity. He must admit to himself, at least, the true extent of his jealousy: he covets that which Miss Martin has, which he, rightfully or not, wants for his own.

Boyd elbows him in the ribs, tearing his attention away from the card game. “Hale, did you hear what she had to say on the works of Shelley? Thoroughly diverting. I could hardly keep up with her.” Boyd smiles in the way of the truly infatuated.

“Are we once again discussing the virtues of the incomparable Miss Reyes?”

“Do you not find her agreeable, Hale?”

“Oh, certainly. Though I must admit, I do not esteem her as greatly as you appear to. I do think very highly of her. She is as lovely as everyone says she is, and I was happily surprised at her wit and the extent of her education. She’ll keep you on your toes,” Derek allows, gesturing toward the other side of the room, where Miss Reyes appears to be holding court, surrounded by a small congregation of young ladies and a pair of young men, besides.

Boyd laughs. “How soon you forget your own courtship and your own romantic sensibilities. Why, only this time last year you were swooning at the mere thought of a dance with your own Mr. Stilinski.”

“You misremember,” Derek insists, but he can feel his cheeks heating. Last year at the Martins’ ball, after Stiles had approached him in introduction, he had stood along the wall and watched the dancers, Stiles among them, fully turned out in a close-tailored evening coat and criminally tight breeches, leading Miss Yukimura through a reel — handsome, and kind, eligible, and perhaps... interested in Derek, or at the very least, not unaffected.

“Do I?” Boyd looks at him askance. “Your regard was evident to all, as was his. Miss Martin herself remarked upon your fortune to find yourself in possession of a strong jaw and fine eyes, given Mr. Stilinski’s partiality to those very features, given neither of you bothered to turn your attention toward any others among the assembled company that night.”

“Pardon?”

"My dear Lord Hale,” Boyd says dryly. “You stood by the fire and watched him dance two quadrilles, a cotillion, and a waltz before he came and asked you to be his partner. And then he danced with you five times that night. Neither of you was a model of propriety. Or sense," Boyd sighs. "Thankfully, you found each other, or someone else would have had to take pity and ask you."

Boyd pats him on the shoulder. Derek thinks it's meant to be comforting. "You two are a very suitable match. Perhaps the best of the season. There are none in our company — perhaps in the whole of England — who doubt his regard for you."

Derek finds himself at a loss for words, Boyd’s hand a heavy weight on his shoulder. He wants so desperately for it to be true — he glances over at Stiles, seated at the card table next to Miss Martin, her hand on his arm as she murmurs something to him from behind her fan. He flushes, and his eyes shoot up to meet Derek’s, the smile fading from his face as their eyes meet. Stiles looks suddenly ill at ease, looking away from Derek’s gaze, pulling away from Miss Martin and shaking his head minutely as he speaks to her.

And Derek’s stomach sinks. A year is a long time past and Boyd is likely misremembering. Even if he was correct — if Derek has, in fact, won Stiles’s affections, it is all too clear that he has lost them since.

The dinner table is no less uncomfortable. Stiles is seated across from Derek, a gilt candelabra looming between them. Miss Martin and Cora are on either side of him. Derek catches Cora making pitiful attempts at pretending not to stare at Stiles and Miss Martin, and shooting furious looks at Derek when he’s looking her way. For her part, Miss Martin flicks her gaze over to Derek and away again as Stiles ducks his head to whisper loudly in her ear, “Lydia, I’ve told you, I can’t—”

Stiles is pink-cheeked and jolly, perhaps too far into his cups for the start of dinner, but he’s far from alone, Derek notes. Whittemore, at the opposite end of the table, is similarly soused, though his temperament seems to have taken a dour turn counter to Stiles’s joyful camaraderie. Lord McCall, too, seems a little flushed, though that could be attributed to the way he can’t avert his eyes from Miss Argent as much as the champagne.

Throughout dinner, Derek studiously ignores Stiles across the table. He’s leaning toward Miss Martin, hand braced on the back of her chair, speaking low and fervent in her ear. Cora keeps trying to catch his attention, but he refuses to look her way.

After the soup is cleared, Derek resolves to ignore anything that should transpire across the table. Instead, he pokes at his salad and the unappetizing aspic glistening on his plate — he’s always preferred simpler fare to the elaborate jellies fashionable among the London set — and makes polite conversation with Mrs. Morrell, seated beside him, about the weather and her husband’s gift of a new foal.

Miss Reyes is on his other side, and while she engages him in the occasional observation or pleasantry, she is deeply absorbed in conversation with Vernon about the merits of yet another literary debut. So Derek nods as Mrs. Morrell recounts the gelding process, picking at the gelatinous mound of aspic on his plate and trying not to steal another unreciprocated glance at Stiles as he slouches ever closer toward Miss Martin with each glass of champagne, avoiding Cora’s attempts to kick him under the table.

Perhaps that explains why he fails to notice Whittemore rising from his seat and stalking around the table to stop at Stiles’s shoulder.

“Stilinski,” Whittemore says, flushed with too much drink, looming over Stiles where he’s practically fallen in Miss Martin’s lap. “Perhaps you should reacquaint yourself with your own place setting.”

“Mind your own affairs, Whittemore,” Stiles says dismissively, turning back to Lydia.

“I don’t think you heard me,” Whittemore says, low and dangerous. He grips the back of Stiles’s chair and leans toward him, face inches from Stiles’s own.

“I don’t think _you_ heard _me._ ” Stiles rolls his eyes. “Piss off, you insufferable, ridiculous fop.”

“Lord Stilinski,” Miss Martin cuts in. “Lord Whittemore. Please, do mind your manners.”

“Before I go, a word of advice: if you spent less time chasing Miss Martin’s skirts you’d have enough time to tend to your husband,” Jackson says, lips twisting into a cruel, satisfied smile. “Though he seems rather willing to have his needs met elsewhere—”

Jackson looks across the table at Derek and in that instant, Derek wants nothing more than to punch the self-satisfied smirk off his arrogant face — until he realizes Mrs. Morrell is looking at him, too, appalled. His face flushes hot under their scrutiny and the vast dining room is suddenly too full: too full of people, of light, of the shame welling up inside of him. What is there to argue? He’d done it; he’d been foolish and free with himself, had let Kate touch him, had been seduced, had thought himself in love. Derek looks down at his plate. He can feel others’ eyes, and is sure Stiles is looking, too.

“You’ll do well to hold your tongue, Whittemore,” Stiles snarls, standing abruptly and knocking his chair backward. He reaches for Whittemore in the same motion, but Whittemore’s ready and shoves Stiles back. Stiles stumbles into the dining table with a clatter, sending a shudder through the heavy mahogany table, laden with platters and centerpieces, upsetting his champagne flute and felling a candelabra. Drops of hot wax land on the back of Derek’s hand and he rises from the table, trying to make his way around to intervene — out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Boyd trying to do the same — but the rest of the guests, transfixed by the altercation, block the way.

“Have I hit a nerve, Stilinski?” Whittemore advances, but Stiles lurches to the side — clumsy, clearly drunk, but Whittemore’s just as inebriated, and misses. Stiles steps forward and lands a solid jab on Whittemore’s face.

Whittemore staggers back but he doesn’t go far, and quickly returns a swift jab to Stiles’s belly and a roundhouse that lands on his right cheek with a loud smack, sending him careening onto the floor at Cora’s feet. Derek rounds the table as Cora helps him up, and just as Whittemore sloppily steps up for another punch—

“ _Enough_ ,” Miss Martin shouts, stepping between them, a hand on each of their chests glaring at each one of them in turn. “And here I thought I’d invited a pair of gentlemen to dine, not the cake-headed louts I see before me. Lord Whittemore,” she hisses, and the angry, animal sneer on Whittemore’s face falters.

“Lydia—”

“Leave.” Miss Martin doesn’t look away, even when Whittemore hesitates and moves to argue. “No. You have brought discord into a gathering of friends, and violence into my home. Now go.”

Whittmore and Stiles are standing beside the table and overturned chairs, Miss Martin between them. Whittemore’s lip is split and bleeding and his jacket is torn, but Stiles is decidedly the worse off, a red mark across his cheekbone where Whittemore landed a hit, his palm pressed against his right eye where it’s doubtless beginning to swell. His collar points are truly hopeless now, and his knuckles split from connecting with Whittemore’s teeth. He’s bruised beneath his jacket and waistcoat, surely.

Stiles watches Jackson go with a triumphant glare that disappears the moment Miss Martin rounds on him. “And you,” she shakes her finger at him. “You should know better by now. Resorting to fisticuffs against Whittemore? And at my dinner table—”

“Forgive me,” Derek murmurs, stepping up to stand beside Stiles. He looks over at Derek in surprise, dropping the hand that’s covering his eye to hang uselessly at his side. “I believe my husband has had enough excitement for one evening. We have interrupted your dinner in an abominable fashion and I’m afraid we must be leaving.”

Miss Martin raises her eyebrows, and Derek reaches across Stiles’s back to cup his elbow, nudge him a little closer to Derek’s side. She nods, narrowing her eyes at Derek. “I think that would be for the best, yes. Good night, Mr. Stilinski. Lord Hale.”

“Good night, Miss Martin,” Derek says cordially, bowing. 

He gently guides Stiles out of the dining room to the foyer, ignoring the aghast stares of the remaining dinner party, averting his eyes from Cora and Boyd. Stiles goes easily, cradling his injured hand to await their carriage. He seems dazed, distracted — not that Derek is any better off. He keeps replaying the altercation in his mind: Whittemore’s insult, Stiles’s upset chair, the toppled candelabra. Derek is confused, stomach twisting — he doesn’t know what to feel, distant from the scene around him as they wait for the carriage to come around. Stiles doesn’t look much better. He thinks better of making an attempt at conversation, and it’s barely any time at all before Derek’s helping Stiles up the steps and they settle across from each other. 

As they lurch forward, picking up speed, Derek catches a glimpse of Stiles’s face in the dark, one eye swelling up, the lamplight reflecting off his distended skin, bright angry red where Jackson’s fist made impact. He thinks about how it will bruise, how he’ll have to look at it every day until it’s a faint brownish-yellow shadow haloing Stiles’s eye socket, until it heals. And for some unknowable reason, that’s the thought that echoes in the hollowed-out emptiness in his head, that bounces around until it catches, unfolds into a slow-burning fury.

“Are you alright?” Derek asks quietly, breaking the silence. Stiles blinks at him in response before slowly responding.

“I’m fine,” Stiles says, but he flinches when the carriage takes a corner slightly too quickly and he has to brace himself against the seat. “I’ll be alright.”

Derek moves to touch him, to lay a comforting hand on Stiles’s shoulder or rest a soothing touch to the back of his hand — and stops. As angry as he is at Whittemore for his unrelenting insistence on needling him at every opportunity, tonight, Stiles is no less to blame. Derek examines the proud line of his jaw, his profile against the streetlamps beyond the window, mouth turned in an exhausted frown.

He’d told Stiles to leave Whittemore alone — it was the only thing Derek had asked of him. 

The carriage lurches, and Derek steadies himself with a hand pressed against the silk upholstery. The horses’ hooves are loud on the cobbles outside the window, and the noise echoes off the stone houses lining the streets.

“Perhaps I was a little too deep in my cups this evening,” Stiles says abruptly, turning away from the window and blinking heavily, a vaguely nauseated expression on his face. “That was not my finest hour.”

“You certainly owe Miss Martin quite an apology,” Derek mutters, catching Stiles’s hand in his own to examine his knuckles. They’re bruised all, and a few split. “Your behavior verged on unforgivable. She may never—”

“He shouldn’t have said that about you,” Stiles interrupts, staring down at his bloodied fingers where they’re curled over Derek’s hand, kindling to the flame. “You aren’t—”

“I can’t believe you,” Derek says, drawing away, letting Stiles’s hands fall. “Of all the stupid, belligerent things…”

“What?” Stiles stares at him challengingly.

Derek meets Stiles’s gaze and doesn’t look away from that upturned jaw, the tense countenance. He has to make Stiles understand: he can’t risk himself, thinking he’ll protect Derek from what others might say. For the most part, they’ve already said it, and what’s more, one can’t refute the truth.

“You already know what they say about me,” Derek insists, clenching his fists against his thighs. “You knew well before we were married, and you know it’s _true_ , so I can’t begin to understand why you would do something so _foolish_ , so _reckless_ —”

“Because it’s not true,” Stiles shouts. “It’s not. You don’t deserve any of it, or what she did to you. I was defending your honor—”

“My honor? I have none left to defend, Stiles.” Derek looks out the carriage to the glow from firelit windows in the residences lining the streets. “You could have been seriously hurt. It’s not worth putting yourself at risk on my account when so much of what they say—”

“Of course it is.” Stiles cuts him off, squeezing Derek’s hands tight in his own until Derek turns away from the window to meet his fierce gaze. “Don’t you understand? You’re my husband. It’s my duty.”

“No, it’s not your duty,” Derek says. “It’s not necessary. Whittemore isn’t— I can handle myself. I’m responsible for the consequences of my actions, and I’ll take them as they come to me. It’s not your concern. Insinuations of who I have let in my bed are my business alone.”

“You honestly— this is maddening.” Stiles shakes his head. “ _You_ are maddening, I can’t... “ He trails off into silence, scrubbing his free hand through his already hopeless hair, wincing when the motion aggravates his bruise.

Derek watches him for a long moment — his husband, sprawled across from him in their carriage, bruised and disheveled from a drunken fight on his behalf. _He’s such a fool_ , Derek thinks hopelessly, and: _my fool_ , before quashing the thought — Stiles is his in name alone. If Stiles belongs to anyone, truly, it is Lydia Martin.

“Aren’t you ever angry at her?” Stiles’ voice is strangely rough and quiet. He looks up at Derek. 

“Am I…” Derek shakes his head. “At whom?”

“At Lady Katherine.”

The carriage suddenly feels small and airless. “Of course I’m angry,” Derek grinds out. “Yes. I should have known better, I should have listened when Laura warned me away. I shouldn’t have trusted her, shouldn’t have taken her into my confidence. I should never have allowed her to…” He looks out the window. It’s bitterly cold outside, but the carriage feels too warm. 

“I always wondered, after the fire, if she had—” Derek stops himself. He’s never said this aloud before. He has to force himself to breathe before he speaks again. “If I was the reason they died.”

“Derek, I—”

“I can never be sure,” Derek says. Stiles is slowly shaking his head, mouth open in shock. “I can never know. It doesn’t matter. She’s dead. Whether the fire was my fault or—”

“It wasn’t. Derek, it wasn’t.” Stiles moves so quickly Derek can’t think to react, lurching forward to grab Derek’s arm so tightly it almost hurts. “Listen to me,” he says, his voice pitched low and intense. “Whatever Kate did or didn’t do, you are not responsible for her actions. You cared for her, you trusted her, and she betrayed you. To behave so cruelly, to act in violation of so precious a gift is truly reprehensible. I can find no fault in your actions, save perhaps an excess of goodness and honesty toward someone who failed to care for you as they should.”

It is as if Stiles’s hand is wrapped around Derek’s heart rather than his arm — there’s a tightness in his chest, the feeling of something breaking open and falling away as Stiles loosens his grip and lets his palm slide down Derek’s arm, coming to rest atop Derek’s own hand. Derek watches, wide-eyed and silent, uncertain. Stiles presses his lips together, and opens his mouth as if to speak—

The carriage jolts, rattling them both. Stiles grimaces and his hand leaves Derek’s to press at his side as he deflates back against the seat with a pained sigh. “But, it is as you said. Your affairs are your own, and I would do well to remember it.”

Before Derek can gather his thoughts, to ask his meaning, Stiles speaks again. 

“I only wanted to…” Stiles trails off and starts again. “ _If_ it were my business— you claim to have no honor left to defend,” Stiles says, brushing a thumb across his raw knuckles. If it hurts — it must, Derek thinks — he gives no indication. Instead, he heaves a long, low sigh and shifts his weight on the carriage seat, settling again and looking up at Derek through his eyelashes. “You’re the most honorable person I know.”

And Derek — Derek doesn’t know what to say to that at all. To the way Stiles is looking at him, his expression soft and unguarded, barely beyond Derek’s reach on the other side of the carriage, so he supposes it’s for the best when the carriage rolls to a halt and the footman eases open the door. Stiles refuses his help out of the carriage, clearly determined to alight on his own, despite his pronounced limp. Stiles’s valet is waiting in the entry, aghast at the blood spatter adorning his abused cravat, and whisks him away for a tending-to.

Derek watches him go, but Stiles doesn’t look back.

++

Stiles looks miserable the next morning, gingerly reaching for his teacup and wincing as he settles back into his chair. As Derek had predicted, his eye is a sorry sight, swollen closed, a blush of purple petechiae dusted across his cheek.

Halfway through a stilted conversation that ignores the events of the previous night in favor of the news of the day (yet another parliamentary scandal), Stiles sets the paper aside and clears his throat.

“Derek,” he says solemnly, and Derek’s stomach drops to his feet. “I do believe I owe you an apology. I am sorry for resorting to fisticuffs against Whittemore last night. I do believe he earned a thorough trimming, but I deeply regret going against your express wishes in doing so. You were right,” he says, settling back into his chair, brow furrowed with the gravity of the moment. “It’s your decision, and not my place to intervene.”

“I— thank you.” Derek clears his throat. “You are forgiven.”

Stiles flashes him a lopsided grin and reaches for the paper. “How greatly I am relieved,” he drawls. “Heaven knows what I should have done had you avoided me for a week as you did the last time I displeased you.”

Derek’s indignant frown sends Stiles into peals of laughter, and they pass the rest of breakfast in the same manner. 

For the rest of the day, and two weeks after, Stiles largely eschews the social engagements and vague business that had previously kept him so preoccupied in favor of staying at home during the day; and not only that, but staying at home and spending time with Derek. 

He must be realistic about the circumstances of their marriage, Derek reminds himself, as they tease out a problem with one of Stiles’s holdings in the country over lunch in the study. Stiles has offered him a comfortable existence alongside a friend and helpmeet, he thinks the next day, reading together in the library, when Stiles looks up from his book to read aloud a particularly bawdy passage and dissolves into indelicate, guffawing laughter. 

He finds, though, he can’t help the ache that fills his lungs, the way he wants nothing more than to touch, watching the line of Stiles’s wrists and the soft, open fall of his mouth as he drives the phaeton through the park, bracing Derek with a hand on his thigh as they glide around a corner.

Derek shivers and Stiles pulls the blanket on their laps higher. “Are you quite warm enough?”

“Yes,” Derek says, cheeks flaming, heart beating painfully in his chest, suspended between despair and desperate longing. “I’m fine.”

++

Stiles and Whittemore’s exchange of blows appear to have had little detriment to his friendship with Lord Mahealani and their invitation to Mahealani’s ball a fortnight hence arrives without incident or delay, save for a small inscription on the corner reading, “Do behave. Yrs &c.— DM.” Derek makes a concerted effort not to glower, but mostly fails, and he pokes at his breakfast until Stiles declares him a grump. Derek retreats into the library, but they make amends at dinner, and all is well, save for the appalling way Stiles’s hair curls over the back of his collar, soft and slightly mussed.

At the ball, Stiles hands him down from the carriage and guides him up the steps, his palm briefly pressed against the small of his back, and Derek thanks him with a warm smile.

“Ready?” Stiles murmurs. He’s standing quite close and hasn’t moved his hand, though Derek is in no danger of falling. 

“Of course,” Derek says. Stiles offers his arm, and they ascend the staircase together.

The party is well underway, and every room they pass through on their way to greet the host is teeming with decadent chaos. Every table in the parlor holds tiered plates of tiny elaborately piped cakes beside artfully arrayed savories, and tiny marzipan sweetmeats rest on delicate silver dishes between them: a miniscule pear, a blushing peach. Servants bearing giant silver trays of champagne and punch deftly sail through the roil of laughing, shrieking, wild guests. Stiles procures a flute for each of them and raises his in a toast.

“To you, Lord Hale,” he says cheerfully, a corner of his mouth quirking up.

“To the Lords Hale,” Derek corrects, and Stiles’s pleased expression falters, for a moment so brief Derek almost misses it.

“Too right,” Stiles says, and drinks deeply, head thrown back. Derek tries not to stare at his throat. Most of the flute is gone when he finally surfaces for air. “Now, I’m afraid you must pardon me. Though I much prefer your company, I must pay my respects to our host.” Stiles gestures at Lord Mahealani, cutting a fine silhouette beside the fireplace, a glass of punch in hand. There, beside him, is none other than Miss Martin, elegantly clad in a seafoam damask gown, pearls adorning her throat and entwined in her hair.

Derek’s stomach sinks. “Yes. Of course.”

Watching Stiles make his way across the room to them, darting between clusters of acquaintances and collecting a second and third glass of champagne from a passing tray, Derek finally names the disappointed longing welling up in his throat. It’s heartbreak.

Derek knows their marriage is one of convenience — has known since the very beginning, and it’s not Stiles’s fault he’d foolishly hoped for more, and kept hoping, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. His own childhood infatuation and Stiles’s unfailingly friendly — perhaps even flirtatious — overtures invited ill-fated hope where there should have been none. He’s behaved abominably ill, Derek realizes, expecting something that was never on offer, never his to begin with.

Still, he tried, hadn’t he? Derek kept telling himself to be grateful, to expect nothing, but if Stiles is right, if he didn’t deserve what Kate did, what happened to him and to his family, his future — why does he deserve this? To be married to Stiles, who he wants with all of his being, but to sleep alone every night, to wake up alone every morning.

He can’t stomach another evening of attempting to make cordial conversation with people he hates while his husband remains frustratingly distant, one step ahead of him, always dancing with someone else. Frowning, Derek sets his empty glass down and skirts along the edge of the parlor, nodding at Stiles as he passes on his way into the ballroom. He skirts around the orchestra and avoids the line dance and the wallflowers, slipping into the dark hallway beyond.

Blinking, he pauses to let his eyes adjust to the dim light offered by sconces set along the wall. Derek can hear footsteps approaching from the ballroom, so he ducks around the corner into an adjoining passageway.

He hears a rustle ahead and freezes. The shadow in the passage before him resolves into two figures in a gentle embrace: Boyd and Miss Reyes, his head bent toward hers, she perched on the tips of her toes to meet his lips with hers. It’s an uncomfortably intimate scene to have stumbled across, despite their relative chastity, and Derek takes a step backward, flushed and mortified, jealous — not of Erica, or of Boyd, but of both of them, that they get to love each other and be loved in return, that they get to kiss and touch and — but as he goes, he smacks into a body standing just behind him.

“What are you— oh,” murmurs a familiar voice, breath stirring the hair at the back of Derek’s neck, and of course, _of course,_ Stiles is the one to find him like this, unmoored and exhausted and desperate to be alone.

Derek says nothing, and Stiles grabs his arm. “Come on,” he says, and he sounds almost angry. He pulls Derek over to a door just back around the corner, sliding it shut behind them. A banked fire glows behind the grate, limning what appears to be a narrow study in a half-lit glow. Stiles stalks over to lean against the escritoire tucked across from the fireplace and sighs.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles says finally, and he sounds so unexpectedly contrite, so weary, Derek can’t help but frown.

“I forgive you,” Derek says readily, then stops himself, because it may not be the truth. “For what?”

“For what? That you had to bear witness to that.” Stiles gestures back toward the door and Boyd and Erica beyond it. “I know you and Boyd are close. To find a... _friend_ in a compromising position with another is hardly a pleasant experience.”

“Boyd _is_ my friend. Of course I wouldn’t begrudge him any happiness,” Derek explains, confused.

“I see,” Stiles says, blinking slowly as if he is trying to do a puzzle or untie a difficult knot. “Am I incorrect in thinking that Boyd was your... most particular friend? I had thought… but again, perhaps not.”

There’s something in the way he says it, the weight he places on each word, that leads Derek to finally, finally understand. Something inside of him cracks into hundreds of tiny pieces, and his patience along with it. The drawing room is suddenly too hot, stifling. “Is that what you think of me? Because of a single foolish indiscretion, that I — with everyone?”

“I beg your pardon? I’m afraid I do not take your meaning.” Stiles has the gall to look bewildered, blinking in confusion, and frustration wells up in Derek anew.

“You say you find me honorable, then you—” Derek says, choking on the words. “You think that because of — Kate, and because you — with Miss Martin, that I’ve—”

“What? What the bloody hell does Lydia have to do with—”

“There,” Derek spat. “You call her Lydia and you dare pretend to misunderstand me. I beg you, do not feign ignorance. I am no innocent, and no stranger to the temptations of married men, but if you had at least been discreet, if I had never known... You make a fool of me.”

“You think Lydia and I are—”

“Well, aren’t you?” Derek’s humiliated that it comes out as a sob. He’s fighting back tears, he realizes, the light of the fire and Stiles’s backlit face blurred.

“No,” Stiles says, shaking his head, brow furrowed, gaze searching Derek’s own. “No, Derek. Lydia — Miss Martin — and I are very close friends and have been since childhood, but no more than that. When I was younger, hardly more than a boy, I had myself convinced that she was my one and only love, but not for years. And then you—”

Stiles cuts himself off, stopping abruptly.

Derek feels that same foolish surge of hope he’s felt every time their hands have touched, every time Stiles _looked_ at him — the same as he’s looking at Derek now, tender and open, lips parted — but then he remembers. He takes a small step away from Stiles, pressing his hands against his thighs to ground himself. “So it’s not her. But nevertheless, you won’t…”

“Damn it all, just say it. I won’t _what_ , Derek?”

There’s a long silence, both of them breathing hard, glaring at each other, and Derek tries to pry the words out from behind his teeth, let the truth free between them, finally out in the open. “You won’t have me.”

“I won’t— I won’t _have_ you?”

“You won’t _touch_ me,” Derek says. “You don’t want me, you won’t _lie with_ me—”

“Like hell, I won’t,” Stiles growls and then, without warning, he’s standing right in front of Derek, his fingers on the back of Derek’s neck to urge him closer and finally, finally, Stiles is kissing him, insistent and incendiary. Derek inhales sharply — Stiles smells like the smoke from the fire and fine whiskey, like the bergamot and thyme perfuming his ridiculous pomade.

He curls his fingers in the warm, rough lapels of Stiles’s jacket and gives himself over to the deliberate slide of Stiles’s lips against his own, the coaxing brush of his tongue. Stiles grasps Derek’s arm as if to keep him from leaving, but where else could he possibly want to go?

His sigh of pleasure gets caught between them and Stiles smiles, just slightly, hauling him closer to deepen the kiss, Derek’s hands caught between them, his chest pressed against Stiles’s. Stiles’s grip on him tightens and Derek can feel the exhale of his breath brush against his cheek as the kiss deepens, turns lush and demanding.

Derek makes a small noise as they part to catch their breath, resting their foreheads together.

“Fuck,” Stiles says, laughing lightly, but his voice hoarse and his eyes are wide and dark, fixed on Derek’s. “I’ve wanted to do that for years.”

Derek tries to breathe against the sudden tightness in his chest and the feeling of something strange and ebullient unfolding from his sternum, hope flowering in the dark heat surrounding them. He wants it to be true, more than anything, but—

“You were gone, all the time, and I waited for you,” Derek says. Stiles starts to draw back but Derek doesn’t let him go. He can’t make sense of what’s happening on his own, can barely _breathe,_ and he has to know why, if Stiles wants him, if Stiles feels even a fraction of what Derek does, why Derek has been alone all this time. “Our wedding night, you left me, and I—”

“I’m sorry,” Stiles says, frowning, pushing his hair back from his forehead. He brushes a kiss over Derek’s cheeks, his nose. Derek closes his eyes and lets him, the first unfurling relief of the apology coursing through him. He relaxes into Stiles’s touch — the caress of his thumb along Derek’s jaw, fingers gripping the back of Derek’s neck. “I’m sorry. I thought...”

Stiles trails off, sighing, and starts again. “When we married, I promised myself I would be realistic about the circumstances of our marriage. That you needed my fortune and wouldn’t have glanced my way otherwise. That I wouldn’t be the next scoundrel to take advantage of your position. That I wouldn’t take advantage of you, our situation...” 

Derek stares at him, shocked into silence.

“You idiot,” he finally says. Stiles blinks at him. “You absolute fool—”

Stiles is fighting a grin as he reaches out to trace Derek’s hairline, skin to skin; to follow the curve of his jaw with his fingertips. “Here I was, ready to apologize for being too forward.”

“On the contrary,” Derek says, soft and low, fervent. “You were not nearly forward enough for my liking. I beg you to reconsider.”

“And how can I deny my husband? I am compelled to obey,” Stiles murmurs, and kisses him again — this time, a filthy drag of lips and tongue, his hands wandering to Derek’s back until Derek’s breathless, his body pressed to Stiles’s, wanton and wanting. He can feel Stiles hard in his breeches where their hips meet and realizes Stiles must feel him, too. He shivers and shoves closer, a low whine caught in the back of his throat.

“Do you know,” Stiles gasps, breaking away for air. His fingers dip under the edges of Derek’s waistcoat to skate along his back. His hands are warm through the thin material of Derek’s shirt. Derek arches into them and Stiles hisses. “Do you know, I find I’m quite exhausted after all this excitement. Perhaps we should make our excuses and call the carriage.”

“The carriage,” Derek repeats, distracted by Stiles’s hands and the way Stiles is looking at him, wide-eyed and wanting, hands still tugging at the edges of Derek’s clothes.

“Yes. I’d really rather fuck you in bed than over Lord Mahealani’s desk,” Stiles pants. “For the first time, at least. And — fuck, look at you — I don’t think I can wait—”

“Oh,” Derek manages, shocked into the thought of Stiles’s hand at the small of his back, pushing him against the embossed leather. _Then don’t wait_ , he thinks to say, but then he remembers the vast expanse of bed waiting for them at home, the insistent, teasing way Stiles has been touching him all night. The times he’d imagined the very same, awake in the dark, panting into his pillow. “Yes, we can—”

“Perfect.” Stiles doesn’t wait for him to finish before they’re kissing again, and Derek takes leave of his senses long enough to let Stiles pin him up against the carved marble jamb of a stranger’s fireplace, allow him to slip a knee between Derek’s legs, to anchor his hands on Derek’s hips. Stiles has undone Derek’s perfectly starched cravat and pulled open his collar to kiss his neck, nipping at his jaw, and Derek can barely think for how good Stiles feels against him — the strength of his back under Derek’s palms, how soft his hair feels tangled in Derek’s fingers, the shock of pleasure his mouth sends through Derek’s body settling between his legs and setting him alight.

“We should go,” Derek pants, grasping for some semblance of propriety before he forgets himself completely and finds himself halfway to properly undressed at someone else’s home. “The carriage.”

“Right,” Stiles nods. “Quite right. Yes. The carriage.” He steps back from Derek all at once, like he has to force himself to stay away and touching him is an all-or-nothing prospect. He rakes his eyes over Derek from head to toe, and Derek can only imagine what he looks like — hair mussed, collar ruined, his waistcoat unbuttoned and shoved to the side. He’s still leaning against the fireplace, hips canted, and he watches Stiles’s gaze linger at the evidence of his arousal, pressing against his too-tight breeches.

Stiles clears his throat. “The back door, perhaps, might make for a more discreet exit.”

Derek nods — Stiles, too, looks a scandalous mess: his jacket wrinkled where Derek twisted the fabric in his fists, shoved his hands up beneath it; his shirt half untucked; the outline of his cock visible through his breeches. _I did that_ , Derek thinks hungrily _._

After several attempts frustrated by wandering hands and the inexorable gravity Derek’s body appears to exert on Stiles, they manage to slip out the back door unnoticed. Derek bites back his laughter as Stiles, determined to maintain a dignified affect, flags their driver down with a straight face despite the undeniable fact that his doublet is quite literally flapping in the breeze.

Derek presses his hands to his sides while they wait for the carriage to pull around to the back. He can’t stop looking at Stiles, and Stiles can’t seem to look away from Derek, his attention refracted between Derek’s hands, his shoulders, his lips.

Derek stares back, wondering at the desire plain on his husband’s face, the evidence of his attraction in Derek’s swollen mouth, the bruising bite still smarting beneath Derek’s cravat. Now that knows, he can’t comprehend how he’d managed to miss it before.

Ignoring the desire to keep touching, propriety be damned, requires every scrap of fortitude Derek can muster. It’s as if now that Derek’s touched Stiles, now that hecan, he never wants to stop. He manages to keep his hands to himself until they’ve tumbled into the privacy of the carriage. The coachman, taking their urgency to heart, drives the horses to a hasty departure.

The sudden acceleration jolts Derek from his seat, and rather than resisting, he goes, taking advantage of the uneasy start to land himself in Stiles’s lap, where Derek can duck his head to kiss him properly, let his hands wander wherever he pleases — to tug on Stiles’s too-long hair, to slip back beneath his doublet, to cling to his shoulders. Stiles holds him steady, hands gripped fast to his hips, pulling him as close as he can get.

For Derek, the rest of the ride blurs into Stiles’s constant touch, the faintly sweet taste of his mouth, his low, thrilling moan when Derek bites at his lip. When the carriage comes to an abrupt halt — in the alley just behind their townhome, bless the coachman — Derek’s cravat is askew once more, his shirt undone in Stiles’s quest for skin to touch, to kiss.

“Blast,” Stiles curses, dropping his head back against the cushioned seat. “Damn and blast. We could send the coachman away?”

Derek considers it — he’s loathe to move, Stiles so tempting beneath him, and half convinced that if he climbs off of Stiles, he’ll straighten his jacket, bid Derek a good night, and disappear to his room. But...

“No,” Derek shakes his head, tugs uselessly at his jacket as he pulls away. “No. I want to do this in your bed, the first time.”

“Oh, hell,” Stiles says, wide-eyed, running a hand through the wild mop of his hair. “Yes. Right. Then, let’s—” He gestures toward the carriage door in invitation. Derek accepts, but not before stealing a final kiss, gentle and promising, that lingers and leaves Stiles staring, thunderstruck as Derek climbs off of his lap and steps down from the carriage. Stiles tumbles out right behind him, looking utterly despoiled, mouth swollen and smudged red by Derek’s mouth, clothes rumpled and ruined by Derek’s hands.

Derek’s heart pounding so loud he’s sure Stiles must be able to hear it as they dash up the stairs, but he knows Stiles’s heart is pounding too — from his flushed cheeks, and the way he keeps looking over at Derek, dazed, happy, like even though he’s trying, he can’t keep the smile from his lips.

And this time, at the top of the stairs, Stiles takes his hand and tugs gently, an invitation. “Come to bed, husband,” he says, and Derek goes.

It’s welcome and strange for how many times he’s imagined this, and how the reality is so much better: how Stiles is already half undone from their embrace in the back of the carriage, his clothes a wrinked, debauched mess. How he glances back over his shoulder to smile at Derek, small and private and almost shy, as he pushes the door open.

Derek barely catches a glimpse of the room — the broad marble fireplace, lit; a writing desk by the dark windows, disorderly and overflowing; the canopied bed, larger than Derek’s own but just as lush — before Stiles has a hold on him, pulling him toward the bed and throwing back the bedspread to push Derek down and kiss him, weight borne by the hands still gripping Derek's biceps. The feeling of Stiles on top of him - pressing him down into the bed, anchoring him - sends a desperate upwelling of desire through him — he wants Stiles to push him down, to ease into him, to take—

And Stiles does: in the sweet weight of his body over Derek’s. In the way he kisses Derek, slow and teasing at first, then filthy and deep, biting at Derek’s lip. In letting go of his arms so he can cradle Derek’s jaw with his long fingers, render him immobile with a gentler touch.

“We should have done this months ago,” he pants through a kiss, pawing at the buttons on Derek’s breeches. “I can’t believe it took us—”

“I’ve— I wanted to. I’ve wanted you. All this time,” Derek says roughly and Stiles’s hands slow, press flat against his abdomen. He looks down at Derek with wide eyes.

“I didn’t know,” he says in an odd, dazed voice. “I thought—”

“I know,” Derek says. “Do you know, our wedding night, I stayed up all night wondering why you left me? Why you didn’t touch me? What I could do to make you want me?”

Stiles looks at him fiercely. “I wanted you, Derek, if you knew how…. you must know I always have wanted you. I want to touch you, I — you can’t imagine all the different ways I want you.”

“Show me.”

Stiles groans and bends to kiss him again, making quick work of Derek’s breeches, his pitiable waistcoat, doing away with his pointless cravat once and for all. He sits up to shed his own clothing until he’s in shirtsleeves, and Derek pulls the hem free, slipping his hands beneath to touch Stiles’s bare chest. Stiles shudders a little at the touch, but waits, watching from under his eyelashes as Derek’s fingers brush across his skin

“Derek,” he says quietly. Derek looks up at him, and he’s struck by how beautiful Stiles is in disarray, in the glow of the firelight, a desperate edge to his voice, like he’s holding himself back. “What do you want?”

Derek flushes. He knows the answer — he’s thought about it many times: sitting across from Stiles during breakfast in the parlor, one ankle hooked over a knee as he reads the paper; eyeing the breadth of his shoulders straining against his new, artfully tailored silk jacket; alone in his bedroom at night, panting into the pillowcase, trying to be quiet. It’s not the knowing that’s the problem, though — it’s the telling.

“I want you to,” Derek says haltingly, and Stiles raises his eyebrows, waiting. Derek desperately wants that to be answer enough, but he’s certain Stiles wants to know exactly, to hear it from his own lips. So he tries again.

“I want you,” he says, flushing. “Inside of me.”

Stiles inhales sharply and nods. “Yes. Yes, Derek, I can — we can do that. I’ll make it so good for you.”

“I know,” Derek says, tension gone. “I know you will.”

“Good,” Stiles says. “I think…” he rolls off of Derek, and Derek only has a moment to miss him before he’s urging Derek further onto the bed, helping him out of his shirt and stockings and shedding his own breeches. Stiles crawls between his knees and runs his hands up Derek’s thighs. His chest is just as freckled as his face — Derek had wondered — and there’s a dark trail of wiry hair on his abdomen, leading from his belly button down to the thatch between his legs where his cock hangs heavy and flushed. Derek wants to look, to touch all of Stiles, to discover every inch of his skin, and then, suddenly, he realizes he _can_.

“Look at you,” Stiles says, eyes roaming over Derek’s body, spread out before him. Derek wants to hide from and to surge to meet Stiles’s attention both: it’s so strange to be seen like this, to be admired, but he _wants_ it, wants the way Stiles looks at him, greedy and honest. He looks back at Stiles, knelt between Derek’s legs, his knees gently encouraging Derek to splay further, his arms and chest tensed from where he’s leaning over him, the shameless flush that colors him down to his chest. “You look so good, Derek. You’re so beautiful, christ.”

Something winds tight in Derek’s chest at his words, and he has to think about breathing, about calming the trembling in his fingers. He reaches for Stiles to distract himself from the feeling, invites him down into a kiss: slow and steadying, grateful.

Stiles pulls away first. “I’m going to take care of you,” he promises, backing down the bed until he’s back between Derek’s legs. “Let me,” he says, and doesn’t wait for an answer. Stiles takes Derek’s cock in hand and runs his thumb up over the head, watching, lips parted.

“Let me,” he says again, and Derek wants to say _yes, anything,_ but Stiles is already taking Derek into his mouth, sinking down with a sigh. Derek can’t help it — he bucks his hips into the wet warmth of Stiles’s mouth, but Stiles is already there with a soothing hand on his hip, easing him back down into the bedding, and that almost makes it worse — the teasing pressure winds him up just as much as it calms him.

Derek can barely think with Stiles’s mouth on him, every part of him focused on the slow drag of Stiles’s lips and tongue, the hand splayed on his hip bone, grounding him, the low noise Stiles makes when Derek tentatively touches his head, tangles his fingers in Stiles’s hair. It doesn’t take long before he’s close, his field of vision narrowing to Stiles’s head bobbing on his cock, and just as Derek’s about to warn him, Stiles pulls off, replacing his mouth with a gentling hand.

Derek writhes up into his grip, watching as Stiles reaches behind him, digging between the pillows and the headboard for — something. He straightens, a vial clutched in one hand, and for a long moment, he just… looks.

It takes Derek some time to catch on to what’s happening, distracted by Stiles’s slick, teasing grip. He knows what the vial is for, he realizes, and if he could blush any brighter he would, but between the warmth of the hearth and the inexorably growing heat inside him, it’s impossible. Stiles bites his lip lightly, eyes running over Derek’s body, lingering where his hand glides over Derek’s cock. Derek looks down to watch, too, breath hitching in his chest at the sight of Stiles’s broad hand wrapped around the flushed, glistening head, perfect and obscene. He screws his eyes shut and thrusts up into Stiles’s hand, grunting in disappointment when Stiles eases off.

“Steady. I’ve got you,” Stiles murmurs as he settles onto the sheets to mouth at the head of Derek’s cock, sucking just below the crown. Stiles brings his hand up, slick with oil, to rub over Derek’s hole, pressing lightly. Derek gasps and presses back, and Stiles pulls back to watch Derek’s face as his finger drags against him.

“Have you, before?” he asks, breaching Derek with a finger.

Derek shakes his head, frowning slightly as he relaxes into the feeling. “Not exactly. Just — just alone.”

“Mmm,” Stiles hums as he takes Derek’s cock back into his mouth, curling his finger to gently press up into Derek, striking against a place inside him that makes Derek cry out. He arches into the touch. “I bet you looked so good. Can’t believe I get to touch you like this. You’re doing so well.”

“Feels good. More,” he gasps, turning his head to look away, to press his cheek against the cool pillowcase. He wants it, even though it feels almost too much, the way the pleasure tightens through his body, makes him feel as if he’ll fly apart.

“What did you think about when you did this?”

“You.” Stiles twists his fingers, and Derek gasps. “ _You_. I thought about you, touching me like this. I thought about you, on top of me, and—”

“Is that what you want?” Stiles asks, the corner of his lips brushing against Derek’s thigh, the tender skin between his legs where Stiles’s head rests.

“Please,” Derek says, and after months of waiting, Stiles doesn’t make him wait any longer. He helps Derek hitch up his legs and crawls up his body to kiss him, leaning down to rest on his forearms, framing Derek’s face. He feels — he feels like he didn’t know he could, breathless and expectant, strung taut with blissful anticipation as Stiles rolls onto one arm and reaches down to line himself up and press in.

They both groan as Stiles sinks into him, pressing his mouth to Derek’s shoulder so he can feel the sound against his skin. “Damn it,” Stiles says fervently, lips brushing Derek’s collarbone. “ _Derek._ ”

Stiles rocks his hips, driving his cock deeper into Derek, and Derek reaches out with grasping hands, landing on Stiles’s bicep and the broad, lean muscle of his back, and holds on. He needs an anchor against the overwhelming feeling of Stiles moving over him, in him, the tidal swell of tenderness welling up in his chest.

“You feel so good, you’re so good,” Stiles says. He starts fucking Derek in earnest, now, and Derek rocks into him, each thrust winding him up further, until he finds himself getting lost in it — the obscene, satisfying smack of their bodies; the sweat that rises on their skin and the way his palms slide along Stiles’s body because of it; the way Stiles tastes when Derek strains up to kiss him. Stiles keeps panting out half-words and strained, cut-off groans, but Derek barely notices, concentrating on keeping quiet, until he can’t hold back any longer, keening on every exhale as Stiles pushes into him, unyielding, urging him higher—

“Stiles,” he gasps, suddenly desperate and aching. Derek reaches between them to take his cock in hand, jerking up into his own grip, giving himself over to the tension building deep in his belly, letting go and coming between them, spilling over his own hand and belly with a loud, unfettered cry.

“Derek, you—” Stiles cuts himself off with a moan as he drives himself deeper and comes, hips jerking against Derek’s ass. Stiles’s intent focus on Derek gives way to slack, dazed pleasure as he moves against Derek in a slow grind. Stiles’s breath hitches, his cries give way to a low whine.

“Fuck, fuck—” Stiles gasps, and Derek can feel Stiles’s cock pulse in him, the shudder that runs through his body as he collapses against Derek, mouth open and gasping. He runs his hands over Stiles’s shoulders, his arms, and feels the muscles jump and tremble under his touch.

After a while, Stiles lifts his head from Derek’s shoulder. He looks just as wrecked as Derek feels. He’s still trying to catch his breath, chest heaving, and his hair is irredeemable, a bird’s nest perched on the crown of his head. Stiles licks his lips, and Derek’s drawn to his swollen-pink mouth, tugging him closer, into a kiss that tastes like salt and spit and the both of them together.

“C’mere,” Stiles slurs, yawning as he rolls off to the side, and Derek settles against him, head resting on Stiles’s shoulder. Nestled in the bed linens, too tired to think to close the bed hangings, comfortable and sweaty and happy, they fall asleep.

++

Derek wakes the next morning to the first light of dawn warming the windowpane, spilling over the sill to brighten his cheek. He blinks, slowly stirring from where he’s burrowed into soft, downy pillows and the cumulous featherbed, but he doesn’t get very far.

They’d forgotten to close the curtains the night before, Derek realizes, yawning. Stiles’s arm, hooked around his waist, tightens to draw Derek back against his chest.

“Mmm,” Stiles hums deep in his chest, a low huff of breath fanning out across the back of Derek’s neck, warm and welcome. “Good morning, my dear.”

“Good morning,” Derek murmurs back, relaxing back into him. 

And a good morning it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to benaya-trash for letting me commission amazing art for this fic! You can find it [here.](https://benaya-trash.tumblr.com/post/617490899631489025/a-beautiful-commission-from-the-emergency)
> 
> Find me on twitter as [whateverrrrisay](https://twitter.com/whateverrrrisay) and on tumblr as [whateverrrrwhatever](https://whateverrrrwhatever.tumblr.com/).


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